Mayweather vs. Cotto post fight Thread -DON'T make new threads about the fight

[Weebler I]

I'm sorry for barging in on your discussion, but your view here is something a lot of people share, and something I'd like to address.

Like you, I think Cotto gained some momentum in the rounds 5, 6 and 8. But I don't think it was because of anything Cotto did as much as it was what Mayweather stopped doing. In round 5, Mayweather started off by going to the body on the inside for the first minute, probably figuring out that he needed to slow Cotto down in order to slow his own pace down, because I think he felt he had maintained a higher activity than normal without being able to slow Cotto down. For 2 minutes and 30 seconds of the round, Floyd was easily outworking and outlanding Cotto, before Cotto tried to steal the round by cornering Floyd to the ropes and throwing a few flurries that resulted in one left hook landing clean to the head as well as a few jabs.

In round 6, Floyd starts off moving with his hands down to slow the pace down, but Cotto wants none of it, forcing Floyd to continue focusing on the body only to have four solid hooks landed against his rib-cage in return. Floyd then starts to throw hard jabs to the belly of Cotto. Then comes the moment where Cotto lands the ******* jab to the nose of Floyd, which makes Floyd take a step back and nod his head as if to say "okay, you got me. Nice shot." After that, Floyd switched to the passive-aggressive mode, where he walked Cotto down, looking for Cotto to fire jabs so he could pull-counter a right hand over it, which he landed clean on one occasion.
Floyd was now clearly trying to force the pace down, realizing that Cotto is much less active going backwards than forwards. In turn he reduces his own output to conserve energy. The last minute he forces Miguel to bounce around heavily and making Cotto every so often jump in with three punch combinations that doesn't hit anything other than elbows and gloves.

To me he clearly gave away this round for the reward of making Cotto spend much more energy while giving himself a welcome breather.

Round 7 is a jab-fest in the center of the ring. It's clear that the round off has given Floyd the snap back in his punches. Sharp, fast jabs landing at will. 2 minutes in we see a nice four-punch combo from Floyd that lands partially. The last minute Cotto looks heavy on his feet to me, slow and clumsy as he jumps in with leaping hooks and combo's that Floyd easily moves away from, looking more and more fresh by the second.

Round 8 starts off with Floyd going directly toe-to-toe, firing off right uppercuts to the mid-section of Miguel, most likely sensing the wear on his opponent. Rapid three-punch combinations up top follows. With a smile on his face, Floyd retreats to the ropes and lets Cotto fire off combination after combination, where only a few jabs lands clean. A few pot-shots to the head to invite Cotto to punch more combinations, which are now becoming wild and inaccurate. To me, as a student of the psychology and mind games in the ring, it becomes clear what Mayweather is doing.
He is draining Cotto's energy by making him frustrated and impatient, spending energy recklessly.
Curiously enough, this was my prediction before the fight;

"First reason of his coming downfall will be his impatience; he'll open up too much, too soon.
Secondly he moves without a plan. It seems like he just spends energy just to do it, for no reason whatsoever. Thirdly he will begin throwing combinations while under pressure, which means Floyd will counter him to death-while on the attack."

By the middle of round 8, it is clear that Cotto is spent, having lost all snap on his punches and is getting increasingly fatigued, evidenced by him leaning on Floyd, basically smothering himself. The last 20 seconds of round 8 is Cotto's last hurrah with a few flurries that made a couple of nice jabs land, winning him the round at the cost of the next 4...

In my eyes, Floyd won the 5 round because he won the first 2:30 min of it. He lost the 6th, in my eyes on purpose because he needed a breather. In the 7th he had his snap, speed and mean combinations back. By the 8th, he was enjoying himself because he knew he was making Cotto tiring himself out. Of course there is no way to be certain that Floyd's gameplan was to wear Cotto down, but to me that seemed blatantly obvious from the second round on. He knew Cotto spends energy for no reason and therefore is more susceptible to wearing himself out, like De la Hoya always did.

I know that Floyd knew, because I knew. And I haven't studied Cotto at all.

I think Floyd expected Cotto to fold more easily in the final four, but was surprised and a little bit frustrated that Miguel was as tough as he was.

It isn't strange, because you cannot teach Cotto to be less tense and spend less energy in the wrong places because that is the personality and style of Cotto. If he had better conditioning, he would only spend even more useless energy in all the wrong places, like jumping up and down like a loon in the middle of the ring.

I think you give Floyd too much credit. If Cotto wasn't a gasser (and we've seen it before from him) Mayweather could have lost that fight but Cotto fell away badly.

At 35, Mayweather was clearly the fitter man. That has to be an indictment of Cotto's conditioning.

Cotto's new trainer is getting a lot of praise but he didn't physically prepare his fighter for the Championship rounds.

To add to that I think a lot of people are forgetting that he wanted to give the fans something to remember.

People might flame me, but he made the Cotto fight harder than he had too to please the fans. Floyd could have fought him in the center of the ring and just simply boxed him. Period, old legs or not.

I watched it a few times and not to take away from Cotto because he fought hard but there were several stretches when Floyd was toying with him.

You know fighters don't think like that in the ring right? they know a fight can change with a single punch, they try to win the easiest way they can.

[LoadedWraps]

I think that you're severely overrating the success that Cotto had with his jab. While he did catch Mayweather several times, he wasn't landing it with any consistency. It wasnt Cotto's offense that was the most impressive, it was his defense. Obviously Cotto at 54 was probably the strongest opponent of Floyd's career so his punches probably hurt more, but he landed at basically the same rate as all of Floyd's opponents. The difference was that he was able to lower Mayweather's accuracy. Mayweather only landing 26% of his punches even though he had a clear reach advantage was the biggest surprise to me.

A jab is also a setup punch. It doesn't need to land to be effective.

[Goldie]

Are you kidding me? In round 8 Cotto landed his jab three times in a row and caused Mayweathers nose to do something we haven't seen in years, which is bleed. When have you ever seen somebody catch May that many times with their jab?

No I'm not kidding you, you're exaggerating the success that Coto had with his jab. Yes, he hit Mayweather with some jabs and bloodied Floyd's nose. That doesn't translate to "Floyd just couldn't avoid the jab", which is the statement that you consigned. I watched the fight too, and Cotto was not landing his jab consistently. I don't rely on the punch stat numbers because they aren't the end all be all, but in this case they bag up what I saw. Compubox had Cotto landing 17% of his jabs for the fight. That's hardly consistent.

A jab is also a setup punch. It doesn't need to land to be effective.

Ok.......and?

[Johnwoo8686]

No I'm not kidding you, you're exaggerating the success that Coto had with his jab. Yes, he hit Mayweather with some jabs and bloodied Floyd's nose. That doesn't translate to "Floyd just couldn't avoid the jab", which is the statement that you consigned. I watched the fight too, and Cotto was not landing his jab consistently. I don't rely on the punch stat numbers because they aren't the end all be all, but in this case they bag up what I saw. Compubox had Cotto landing 17% of his jabs for the fight. That's hardly consistent.
Ok.......and?

I'm not saying Floyd couldn't avoid the jab at all but he did have trouble avoiding it. That is in part because of Cotto's exceptional jab. And 17% is a lot to land on Floyd considering his past few opponents barely landed anything significant on him.

[Hitman18]

Floyd completely controlled the fight. Forwards, backwards, left, right and center. Floyd wanted Cotto to do exactly what he did; smothering himself and making him spend more energy than necessary.
Keep in mind that Floyd is an excellent bodypuncher, but in a somewhat sneaky manner.

He prepared for it. It's just that Cotto has an excellent jab, is one of the best fighters in the world and is willing to take a punch to deliver a punch. The idea that any fighter can avoid every punch from the best fighters in the world is disturbing. Any fight between the absolute elite will be exactly that; a fight.

Indeed. Cotto is tough, mean and very, very good.

I will say thought that there were plenty of instances where Floyd tried moving to the center and Cotto didn't allow him too. Also I agree with the notion that Floyd didn't expect Cotto's jab to be as effective as it was. I will disagree with the notion that floyd "toyed" with Cotto because that is far from what happened. Mayweather may have been able to control the fight in most rounds but Cotto was able to control many moments as well with his jab and pressure. Cotto let off the gas and allowed mayweather to take it to the center sometimes, Im not sure why he did that.

All that being said, I think Cotto definitely had the tools and intelligence to beat Mayweather, he just didn't utilize them, unlike almost every other Floyd opponent who lacked either the skills or intelligence or both.

[Weebler I]

I will say thought that there were plenty of instances where Floyd tried moving to the center and Cotto didn't allow him too. Also I agree with the notion that Floyd didn't expect Cotto's jab to be as effective as it was. I will disagree with the notion that floyd "toyed" with Cotto because that is far from what happened. Mayweather may have been able to control the fight in most rounds but Cotto was able to control many moments as well with his jab and pressure. Cotto let off the gas and allowed mayweather to take it to the center sometimes, Im not sure why he did that.

All that being said, I think Cotto definitely had the tools and intelligence to beat Mayweather, he just didn't utilize them, unlike almost every other Floyd opponent who lacked either the skills or intelligence or both.

He tried bro. When it eventually started to work for him his lack of stamina cost him.

Maybe try again a year down the line...

[WESS]

Cotto's a warrior. Re-watching the fight tonight yet again on HBO. If he stays at 154, with Diaz in his corner, his mental status back and his game plans being on par, I can't see him losing again (outside of Mayweather).

Anyone think otherwise?

[MrRolltide91]

Cotto's a warrior. Re-watching the fight tonight yet again on HBO. If he stays at 154, with Diaz in his corner, his mental status back and his game plans being on par, I can't see him losing again (outside of Mayweather).

Anyone think otherwise?

i wanna see canelo vs cotto

[LoadedWraps]

i wanna see canelo vs cotto

Why? Cotto doesn't need to take that beating at this point in his career.

[AnimalisticMeth]

Cotto's a warrior. Re-watching the fight tonight yet again on HBO. If he stays at 154, with Diaz in his corner, his mental status back and his game plans being on par, I can't see him losing again (outside of Mayweather).

Anyone think otherwise?

Yeah at 154 there is no one that can beat Cotto right now. His boxing skills are far better thn everyone in that division. I want to see Cotto vs Molina or Bundrage next.