Emauel Steward: "Miguiel Cotto's Basics Are All Screwed Up"

FH: So as you're in Tampa, now, training Miguel Cotto, what's your assessment of him right now after his past few fights? Steward: I've always been a big fan of Miguel Cotto, but I've noticed and realized that in his past four or five fights, even the ones that he's won with Zab Judah and Joshua Clottey, and, naturally, against Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao, that he has taken a lot of punishment. He's a very good fighter, but like Tommy Hearns and Shane Mosley, he hasn't dodged anybody. He's fought everybody at 140, and, 147 and he's left a lot of blood on the floor. But he's fought everybody, and that's earned a lot of respect for me. Now, with this fight with Yuri Foreman, it's going to take some serious work. It's going to be a challenge for me to see if we can resurrect this guy at this stage in my life, because he's fighting a guy who is the naturally bigger guy. He's fighting a guy whose style is very, very difficult for anyone to fight. It's a challenge like it was for me with Evander Holyfield for the second fight with Bowe, and for Oliver McCall to beat Lennox Lewis. I just find it very challenging situation. FH: Are there any whole sale changes that you are making? Steward: Major, major changes. All of his basics were all screwed up. I've watched him go from being a pretty good little boxer-puncher earlier in his career to just being a squatting down guy with his hands way apart. All of his basics are all screwed up now. It's a very difficult assignment, but I find it challenging. I have to see what I can do in the few weeks that I have. But the one thing is I'm not teaching him things that he's never done. At one time in his career, he was very good. It's about taking this guy back to being what he was and he's forgot. It's like getting Evander to beat Riddick Bowe the second fight. I was reminding him about what he was like as an amateur when he used to have foot movement, and then, he turned into a strictly aggressive fighter. And that's why Riddick Bowe just distroyed him that first fight. The second fight, I made him go back to his amateur days -- changing direction, punching. That's how he won the title back. The third fight, when I wasn't with him, he went back to his old way just trying to walk in and just exchange with Bowe. But Miguel used to be a beautiful little boxer who was beating all of our American guys. He would get on his toes, and he could box and he could box. And then, some kind of way, he became this squatting down, peek-a-boo defense, coming forward little guy. And he couldn't be effective that way anymore. What we're working on is his basic stuff. http://boxing.fanhouse.com/2010/04/12/manny-steward-on-wladimir-klitschko-miguel-cotto-american-heav/