By Coach Tim Walker – It was an old fashioned whipping. The kind you got for taking a piece of candy out the store that wasn’t paid for or for making your mamma tell you something more than once. In just under 12 rounds Manny Pacquiao, the new WBO welterweight champion and current most amazing fighter I’ve ever seen, did that and more to Miguel Cotto. Cotto had his moments but in the end he was thoroughly outgunned, out-boxed and out-willed.
I wrote an article just a few days ago and tagged it with the headline Cotto Pacs Manny. I felt it prudent to pay tribute to the man who in my mind now is truly one of the greatest fighters to ever put on boxing gloves, Manny Pacquiao, by reversing that title to something much more appropriate.
In choosing Cotto to win I analyzed what the PacMan did against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton by scaling his success against the premise that he dismantled two fighters who were not up to par because of circumstances. First, both in their previous fights suffered losses to Floyd Mayweather Junior and second, both might have been weight drained from getting down to 147 and 140 respectively. I felt that those obstacles gave Manny significant advantages. Advantages that he wouldn’t enjoy against a thick, powerful fully developed 147-pounder like Cotto. I was wrong..
In all fairness, Cotto had moments in this fight and will certainly remain very popular amongst fight fans and people of his native Puerto Rico but those moments came very early in the fight and ended abruptly when he touched the canvas in the second round. To his credit he boxed his way back into the fight thru the third round but a second knock down in round 4 just about sealed the deal. Why? After the second knock down Cotto looked and responded like a different fighter. He adopted a move, move, move strategy that eliminated his one chance in this fight, his power.
How did this happen?
In the lead up commentary it was pointed out that Cotto fully vested himself in the belief that he was as fast as Pacquiao. Yeah, I was shocked to hear that as well. Based on this belief he formulated a strategy that meant matching speed. It is difficult to match speed when you don’t have the tools to do it. In the first 1 1/2 rounds he actually had success with this strategy which seemingly cemented the game plan. About half way thru the second round Manny turned up the juice and Cotto’s speed, or lack thereof in comparison to Manny, was apparent. Two knockdowns and a few wobbles later Cotto was reduced to moving around the ring more than he punched which effectively eliminated his greatest possibility of winning, his power shots. Freddy Roach held true to his promise of making certain his charge did not allow Cotto to get into that comfort zone.
In my defense, and there is very little defensible ground for me to stand on here, Cotto didn’t fight the way I thought he would. I thought he would impose his natural physical size and make it a somewhat ugly nasty battle. Yet something was lost in translation. Maybe his team has an answer for why Cotto was allowed to believe he was as quick handed. They seem to have abandoned the philosophy of “not boxing with a boxer, or punching with a puncher.” His game plan was predicated on the faulty premise of equal hand speed. We learned quickly that Cotto didn’t have the physical tools to match Pacquiao over 12 rounds.
I was wrong all around about this fight. Initially I didn’t think this fight would get made because a huge Mayweather fight was looming. Wrong! Then I didn’t think Cotto would concede the two pounds that Team Pacquiao wanted. Wrong again. Then I thought Cotto was more than he bargained for. Wrong-Wrong-Wrong!
Respectfully to Cotto he is a classy champion, but, Manny Pacquiao has proven himself to be one of the greatest to every lace them up. Regardless of what he does when and if he ever fights the Pretty Boy he is absolutely in my top 5 all time greats along with the likes of Sugar Ray Robinson and Muhammad Ali. Pretty good company indeed.
Coach Tim Walker is a contributing writer for the Eastsideboxing.com and his own blog at boxing4life.blogspot.com. To make fighter suggestions for Weekly Stud, The Prospect or to contact him with questions or comments please email him at tpwalker@hotmail.com..