Floyd Mayweather couldn?t seem much more ripe for defeat. But it isn?t going to happen Saturday in his HBO pay-per-view super welterweight showdown with Miguel Cotto. Mayweather is faster, bigger, and probably stronger than Cotto.
Yes, there is reason for doubt:
*Mayweather will spend the summer behind bars, serving a delayed sentence in a case of domestic violence. That would distract the average person, but Mayweather is determinedly not that and says it?s no big deal.
*He?s getting old (35) by boxing standards and won?t be able to count on superior quickness much longer, but that hasn?t happened yet.
*Cotto is as formidable a challenge as anyone Mayweather has faced, as Floyd acknowledges, even blaming Cotto?s two losses on a cheating opponent (Antonio Margarito) and a depleting catch weight (Manny Pacquiao) so as to maximize the importance of Saturday?s match.
But when it comes to betting on himself, Mayweather has never taken a serious chance on losing, and he considers beating Cotto just as sure a thing as the rest of his 42 victories in 42 fights (with titles in five weight classes). He?s probably right.
Floyd is big on betting, and that?s becoming the most revealing thing about a man who claims that his detractors don?t know him well enough to judge his often hateful behavior toward family and foe alike.
The one disquieting episode, in this spring?s calvalcade of shorts, flashbacks interviews and documentaries HBO has produced to hype Mayweather-Cotto, occurred during Face Off, Max Kellerman?s occasionally tense dual interviews in which he sits between the two combatants, putting them face to face. It was electrifying last fall, for instance, when Cotto and Margarito flanked Kellerman, preceding their rematch, to debate the loaded gloves aftermath.
The Mayweather-Cotto Face Off would have been all dignity and mutual praise had Mayweather not been so restless that he was difficult to watch, especially for anyone who has suffered a panic attack. At one point he obstreperously reversed his chair while Cotto was talking. When Cotto next had the floor, Mayweather got up and began pacing while trying to get the latest score of an NCAA basketball tournament game (concurrent with the Face Off taping) on which Floyd had bet $100,000 on the first-half point spread.
Was he pacing because betting $100,000 always exhilirates him, or was it because his anxieties are so profound that he can?t sit still?
Can he really be as cool and collected as he claims on the eve of a possible downturn in his career and then 90 days of incarceration? It didn?t look that way on Face Off.
He?ll easily outpoint Cotto and might stop him on cuts, but Mayweather seems poised only to veer out of control in the all-too-near future.
DETAILS: Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 knockouts) meets Miguel Angel Cotto (37-2, 30 knockouts) for Cotto’s WBA Super Welterweight World Championship and the vacant WBC Super Welterweight Diamond belt. Also featured will be Canelo Alvarezvs. Sugar Shane Mosley, a 12-round fight for Canelo’s WBC Super Welterweight World Championship. and a 10-round welterweight fight featuring undefeated Jessie Vargas vs. Steve Forbes. The HBO pay-per-view telecast from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas begins at 6 p.m. (PDT).
