By Mark Vester
Former two-division champion Miguel Cotto is already preparing, mentally and physically, for his return to the ring in 2009. Promoter Bob Arum had said a few weeks ago that February 14 is the tentative date. He returns from the first loss of his career, an eleventh-round TKO to Antonio Margarito.
Cotto's was never able to use his signature punch during the fight, the left hook to the body. The body work that won him several key fights, was nowhere to be seen when he fought Margarito. Speaking with Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports, he never gave a detailed reason, but said Margarito was making it impossible to target the body.
“Believe me when I tell you, I tried, but it was impossible,” Cotto said. “Margarito was doing things that made it impossible for me to do that. I wanted to, but I could not. I was disappointed, I guess that’s the word, because I felt like I could have won the fight, but I was fine other than that. I’m excited about getting back to it.”
Following the loss, fans and media were quick to jump on his mistakes. He doesn't want to say that he used the wrong strategy, but he tells Iole that a number of mistakes need to be worked on before his he faces Margarito for the second time next June.
“Part of boxing is winning and part of it is losing,” Cotto said. “When you win, you might have made a lot of mistakes, but no one asks you about it because you won. When you lose, maybe you only might make a smaller number of mistakes, but because you lose, that’s all that you hear about. It’s OK. I don’t want to say I had the wrong strategy. I tried to do the best I could. If you saw the fight, the first five, six or seven rounds, I think Cotto was looking pretty good.”
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