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MARTINEZ TOO FAST AND TOO BIG FOR COTTO? By Carlos Costa PhilBoxing.com Wed, 12 Mar 2014  It will be a great boxing treat for New York boxing fans during the 56th annual Puerto Rican Day Parade on June 8 in the Big Apple. The night before, their long time hero Miguel Cotto battles Sergio "Maravilla" Martinez of Argentina for the WBC Middleweight World Title at the Madison Square Garden. This year's Puerto Rican Day celebration in New York couldn't be any better. The best man to win. Both men are great warriors, though on paper "Maravilla" Martinez appears bigger and faster than Cotto. A number of fans could not foresee Cotto outboxing and outmaneuvering the taller and slicker Martinez. What seems plausible is the other way around, which is the complicated hands-down style of Maravilla driving the more orthodox Cotto crazy. One reason is a painful reminder from the past. Miguel Cotto has had serious trouble with fast, hard-punching southpaw boxers like Manny Pacquiao and the world watched how the outstanding 3-division world champion from Caguas, Puerto Rico, ended severely beaten. However, in the mind of die-hard Cotto fans, the then Puerto Rican 147-pound world champion was dehydrated and weakened from the debilitating effort of coming down to 145 lbs, a catchweight imposed by Pacquiao's team. Had the Pacquiao-Cotto fight of 2009 for the Welterweight World Title had been at 147-lbs, allowing the Puerto Rican to fight at his best fighting weight, could Pacquiao beaten Cotto? Cotto fans say no. But we will never know. What we know is that Cotto had enormous trouble reading the attacks dished out at him by a fast, hard-to-track lefty the Pacman even from the first four rounds. As a result, Pacquiao knocked Cotto down in round 3 with a vicious right hook, and then again in round 4 with a sharp left uppercut that Cotto never saw coming. From then on, Pacquiao continued pursuing the Puerto Rican hero and 59 seconds into the last round, referee Kenny Bayless (in my mind the best referee in the world) had to stop the uneven battle. Pacquiao's speed dominated Cotto completely. Scorecards of 109-99, 108-99, and 108-100, all in favor of Pacquiao say it all. Cotto could not handle the speed, power and the southpaw stance from the Filipino. 
Will Martinez deal the same damage onto the shorter Cotto? Many fans say yes. This line of reasoning suggests that Martinez would do the same to Cotto, which is using his thundering speed and confusing hands-down southpaw boxing to penetrate the defense of the slower, smaller Puerto Rican stellar boxer. The stinging right jab of Martinez might begin doing the damage from the very first round. Combinations will continue to pour in through the rounds. Similar to what Martinez did to Chavez Jr. But Chavez Jr. is a huge strong middleweight who took all that Martinez threw. Cotto does not seem as strong middleweight Chavez Jr. On the down side, it is also undeniable that both star boxers are in the twilight of their shining fighting careers. With 39 years-of-age, Martinez is coming from a knee operation done in Spain, while Cotto, 33, hasn't look that great since his second fight against "El Tornado de Tijuana" Antonio Margarito back in December of 2011. And last year Cotto could not handle 154-pounder Austin Trout. Now at 160 pounds, will Cotto perform better? While it is not right to underestimate a big-hearted, proven warrior in Cotto, another fact is that he has never fought at 160 pounds. This one will be the first time... and against a world champion. Six more pounds. This doesn't sound right. Yes, it is true that Cotto defeated boxer Devlin Rodriguez of the Dominican Republic in October of last year. But fans know that Devlin is not and has never been an elite boxer. Anyway, the scalping of Devlin was Cottos's first win after straight loses to Mayweather and Trout, all those fights being at 154 lbs. Moreover, while the Argentinian world champion is 6 years older than the popular Puerto Rican star, it is Cotto who has the much rougher career. The horrible bloody beatings that Cotto suffered from the fists of Pacquiao and Margarito (Margarito probably with plaster in his hand wraps? nobody knows) are unforgettable and heart-breaking massacres. Another point is, how are the knees of Martinez? After his surgery, that knee hasn't been tested in combat. His knee failed and/or got damaged during his fight against tough Briton Martin Murray (26-1-1, 11 KO's) in April of last year, a fight in which the brave "Maravilla" barely made it to the last round. Maravilla even went down in round 8, but managed to get up and outpoint Murray. Something similar happened in Martinez's fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., a war in which the Argentinian almost succumb in the last round. Who can forget how Martinez got knocked down in the last round by Chavez? Seconds later Martinez was down again in that unbelievable 12th round. But it was ruled a slip and not a knockdown by the referee Tony Weeks. That was a wild last round. Somehow Martinez made it to the last bell, becoming the righteous unanimous decision winner. Amigos, would it be that Cotto is contemplating his retirement from boxing and he wants to pick up a last big check before his goodbye to the ring, so he doesn't mind climbing up to a another weight class to face the world champion, knowing that the 160-pound division is a weight class in which he is at a disadvantage? In fact, the extra pounds might make him even slower. How would Cotto do against middleweight warriors as Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Felix Sturm and others? Would Cotto and Top Rank have picked Martinez because of his injuries? Would Martinez be healed and boxing well? We'll find out on June 7, and lets hope that night those old beatings that Cotto suffered from the pulverizing blows from Pacquiao and Margarito would not come out to affect him. In conclusion, if both boxers are in top shape, I see "Maravilla" Martinez wining by TKO in the later rounds. Carlos Costa is a Philboxing.com columnist, boxing photographer and Asia editor of NotiFight.com. Carlos attends boxing events from all over the world, from blockbuster mega fights in Las Vegas to small cards in remote provinces of Thailand to amateur boxing in Cuba. Twitter: @CarlosCostaBox Click here to view a list of other articles written by Carlos Costa.  |
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