Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach was the most prominent presence in Manny Pacquiao’s corner on the night in November 2009 when the Filipino superstar turned what should have been one of the toughest tests of his career into a cake-walk.
Pacquiao scored a shut-out points win over Miguel Cotto, shattering the Puerto Rican’s claims to pound-for-pound superiority and arguably starting a steady decline which has now seen Cotto come up short in each of his last two fights.
At the age of 32, it looks for all the world like Cotto’s best days are behind him.
But that is far from the case according to the new man in Cotto’s corner – and that man is none other than Roach.
Cotto has been training in Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles ahead of his latest bout this Saturday night against the Dominican Republic light-middleweight Delvin Rodriguez in Miami.
After giving a good account in his points defeat to Floyd Mayweather in May last year, Cotto went on to lose clearly to up-and-coming Austin Trout last December, but Roach believes Cotto still has much to give.
Roach said: “I don’t believe in changing people. I’m just trying to remind him of what worked best and to use it more. I know he’s a great fighter, and if I can make someone a better fighter, I’m here.”
Cotto won his first world title at light-welterweight in 2004 and established himself as one of the strongest champions in the sport via a series of powerful, high-profile defences against the likes of Ricardo Torres and Paulie Malignaggi.
His dominance continued at welterweight with back-to-back wins over Zab Judah and Shane Mosley before he ran into Pacquiao, who made light of Cotto’s sizeable weight advantage to skate to victory under Roach’s expert guidance.
“When I trained Manny for that fight the biggest thing was to stay off the ropes because if you go on the ropes, Miguel is going to hit you with the left hook to the body and that was something we had to stay away from,” recalled Roach.
“That was the biggest thing we worked on in camp. Miguel would sometimes get a little lazy with his punches. He has great speed with his punches so we have been working on that and it’s been working quite well.”
Cotto remains a tremendously popular fighter, not only in his native Puerto Rico but across the United States, and there are hopes the sold-out signs will be propped outside the Amway Center in Orlando for his fight with Rodriguez.
Victory over Rodriguez, who is a year older than Cotto and has seldom mixed in a similar level of company, could yet lead him back to a world title shot, but the fighter himself accepts his time to make another big impression is running short.
“A couple more fights then it will be over,” said Cotto. “I have had a lot of fights over my career and I thought it would be good to take a break. I feel good now with all the training sessions we have had in LA.
“I am not interested at all in coming back down to 147lbs. I feel great at 154lbs. I am doing what I need to do. I had problems at 147 and everyone knows how difficult it was for me. I don’t ever want that to happen again.”
