How much did Cotto really risk?

[Mojita]

Its funny, Cotto won vacant titles and at least defended them againest the best in the division at least.


I dont hear Chavez or Alarvez getting ****. Especially when there defending the belts againest medicore opposition.

[Big_L]

Was Floyd DARING when he moved to 140 and fought Gatti for a belt instead of Tszyu for the title? Mayweather was no more of a champion at 140 than Cotto was.

[daggum]

Was Floyd DARING when he moved to 140 and fought Gatti for a belt instead of Tszyu for the title? Mayweather was no more of a champion at 140 than Cotto was.

yes. he dared to fight 2 eliminators just to get a shot at gatti. he knows his cherry picking can't deny that.

[jrosales13]

Was Floyd DARING when he moved to 140 and fought Gatti for a belt instead of Tszyu for the title? Mayweather was no more of a champion at 140 than Cotto was.

He really couldn't fight Kostya because at the time Showtime like HBO signed fighters. Floyd was under contract with HBO and Kostya was under contract with Showtime.

Now it's different, Showtime don't sign fighters(they did Bute but haven't since). Under Hershman they were under No rights, great fights moniker.

[Spray_resistant]

TS when you have to type that much to try and justify why Cotto is not a total badass based on the risks he takes and his resume, it should tell you that you are probably wrong.

[gauze]

When you compare guys like Cotto, Margarito, Barrera, Morales, Clottey, Williams and Martinez against men like Mayweather, Ward, Tszyu, Jones and even Hopkins, there is no competition.

oh ok. good post...i guess.

[HandSpeed303]

You're wrong.

Cotto didn't win that WBO title from Clottey. He won it in a vacant title match against Michael Jennings.

I could understand how you might think that as the Jennings fight went largely unnoticed, but I think that was their goal. I think A LOT of people wrongly believed that Cotto won that belt from Clottey.

Check it out for yourself: http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?hum...3535&cat=boxer

Scroll down to: 2009-02-21

Jro, is right...

I forgot Clottey got stripped of his title.

[quxel]

What kind of backward asss assessment is that?

By fighting the best in every division one competes in, one DOES NOT dare to be great ... but by fighting for vacant titles in EVERY title match one has ever had except for at jrMW, that's daring to be great?

Cotto has NEVER had a world championship belt before jrMW.

Did you know that?

He only had vacant titles at JrWW, WW and finally got a championship against freakin Yuri Foreman.

You really need to step your boxing knowledge game up.

The only real risk Cotto ever really took was fight Mosley. Fighting Margarito who was coming off of a loss to Williams was not daring. Margarito had just been shown to be vulnerable.

Then afterwards, fighting Clottey and Pacquiao was DEFINITELY not daring. It was necessary to bring Miguel's career back into the spotlight because Margarito had beaten the brakes off Cotto's asss. Cotto had to constantly foul just to get passed Clottey! Remember the bodyslam? Then he got beaten so badly against Manny that he tried to quit on the stool!

That's "daring"?

It actually isn't.

If Cotto was really "daring", he wouldn't have refused a fight with Mayweather that was offered to him years ago back at jrWW. Hell, Carl Froch only had like 23 fights when he stepped up to the WORLD STAGE against Jean Pascal. He had 24 fights when he stepped into the Super Six tournament!

Now THAT is daring!

I'll try to explain this to you like I have to others so many times before:

Just because a fighter wins a bout doesn't make him special. If every time a fighter won a fight that made him a HOF or an ATG, then those terms and accolades would be meaningless.

That's the problem today. Fans and sportswriters hail every boxer who wins as some HOF'er. Margarito was NEVER in a position to be considered P4P let alone a ATG or HOF. His only real noteworthy win came over Miguel Cotto. THAT'S IT!

Yet some fans of Margarito spoke as if he was some legend. They spoke like he had taken the world by storm, when in reality Margarito had only 1 noteworthy win and lost that title 8 months later!

Cotto is no different.

Cotto had one noteworthy win over Mosley, and in just about 8 months later he got beaten bloody, lost his title, sought out a vacant belt against Michael Jennings, got REAL dirty against Clottey who was beating him, and then got embarrassed against Pacquiao.

Cotto is neither a HOF, a ATG or a P4P fighter because of that ONE razor slim win over Mosley. And when you factor in that all of Cotto's world belts have been vacant except for the one he beat Foreman for, he's never really even been special.

Special = dominance and longevity for years against the top 3 ranked competition in whatever division you compete in. Every top level fight Cotto and Margarito have been in have been hard fights. I don't think I have ever seen Floyd in a tough fight. Andre Ward always dictates the pace and space in his bouts although they do get hard for him at times. Kostya Tszyu maybe had 2 hard fights in his entire career. Roy Jones never had a close fight until his second fight with Tarver at what should have been the end of his career.

When you compare guys like Cotto, Margarito, Barrera, Morales, Clottey, Williams and Martinez against men like Mayweather, Ward, Tszyu, Jones and even Hopkins, there is no competition.

They are dwarfed in terms of longevity and dominance against top competition.

However in an effort to make other fighters who don't dominate like the aforementioned seem more important for the sake of keeping specific fanbases interested and spending money, the business of boxing has placed a TREMENDOUS amount of emphasis on P4P lists ... which are completely subjective because they DO NOT have to adhere to any criteria to substantiate a ranking.

Recognize bull**** and don let it play a role in boxing if your really love the sport.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/100/315/iTAmc.GIF

[HandSpeed303]

You're wrong.

Cotto didn't win that WBO title from Clottey. He won it in a vacant title match against Michael Jennings.

I could understand how you might think that as the Jennings fight went largely unnoticed, but I think that was their goal. I think A LOT of people wrongly believed that Cotto won that belt from Clottey.

Check it out for yourself: http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?hum...3535&cat=boxer

Scroll down to: 2009-02-21

I just re-read your post.

I didn't get anything confused with the Jennings fight...A fight I saw by the way...I don't know where that came from.

Clottey beat Zab for the vacant title then fought Cotto. I forgot he got stripped. Honest mistake. Also, I wasn't speaking about the WBO, as that was not the title Clottey had...

Anyway, you were right, he didn't win a title from Clottey.

[Brother Jay]

As usual you make like 5 good points and 5 crappy ones.

Ya think? Really?

The main problem is that you assume that having easy fights means you're a better fighter than someone like barrera who had tougher fights against much better comp. Just to even type that morales and barrera were dwarfed by floyd, zoo, etc in logevity and dominance vs top competition should get your pass revoked.

Name even 3 boxers that Barrera faced and beat to say that he had even better than average competition. Of those you will name, will you kindly let us know which of them were ranked in the top 3, please?

You won't because you cannot. That question alone will silence your foolishness immediately. Aside from Morales, the only men you cant cite that Barrera beat (and they aren't even worth mentioning) are Hamed, Tapia, Ayala and Juarez.

That's the grand competition you speak of? You shouldn't just have your card revoked for hyping up those BUMS, you should be slapped for wasting my time with that nonsense.

Hell barrera v hamed was better than any of floyd's wins. Hamed was more of a beast than corrales.

For you to call Hamed, who hid out in Europe fighting bums for his entire career before fighting Kelley, "a beast" means that you are NOT a boxing fan.

You're a fanboy of hype and promotion. Naseem Hamed has not one significant, meaningful win in terms of legacy wins. Any real fan knows this. Any real fan could look at the man's record and see that he pulled a Darius Michalczewski move and insulated himself from real competition until he arrived in America. Hamed's ONLY non-euro bum win came over Kelley, who was at that point regarded by most as way passed his best or even his better days.

You clearly just type whatever comes to mind. Notice that I don't just make ******, empty statements? I ALWAYS back my **** up with solid logic and facts.

And floyd was i tough vs castillo, so yes, he's had a tough fight.

You must have just started watching boxing. Go look at Floyd's record and then go watch those fights. You know .. the ones where championships were on the line. Floyd wasn't the P4P#1 and heir apparent to Roy Jones because he's actually "pretty". The man was knocking cats out and looking almost as inhuman as Jones doing it because they both seemed almost bored dominating the top 3 ranked champions and contenders in EVERY division they competed in.

What YOU clearly don't understand is that Barrera has not ever won against a WORLD CHAMPION CALIBER FIGHTER other than Morales! That fact alone illustrates that Barrera could not play on the elite stage. Every time he did try, he got beat! He's lost and won against Morales, but he also lost to Pacquiao, Marquez and Khan. You cannot name one other world champion caliber fighter that Barrera ever beat! EVER!

Morales isn't much better. His claim to fame is beating Pacquiao ONE TIME. Other than that, Morales' career is about Barrera and vice versa. His avoiding getting redemption against Zahir Raheem was plain out embarrassing. Pacquiao opting to fight Morales after Zahir took Morales' championship was equally embarrassing.

I want to leave you with a quote. Hopefully it will broaden your understanding as to why average fighters wind up getting such high and unwarranted rank and praise:

"However in an effort to make other fighters who don't dominate like the aforementioned seem more important for the sake of keeping specific fanbases interested and spending money, the business of boxing has placed a TREMENDOUS amount of emphasis on P4P lists ... which are completely subjective because they DO NOT have to adhere to any criteria to substantiate a ranking."

Cotto is not an atg or hof'er.

I cant believe people were saying he has a better resume than floyd.

You at least got that part right. Now stop being dense and apply the same factors on the same exact scale and figure out for yourself that 90% of today's current boxers are the recipients of the same hype Cotto is.

Boxing is a business. The promoters and the networks know that no one is going to pay to see someone that is perceived as "mediocre" or "subpar". So every boxer who has even a modicum of talent is marketed as a gladiator of some sort. However those in the know understand that once those hype jobs step up against real talent there is a pretty big chance that they are going to get exposed.

It happened to Barrera twice against Junior Jones.

It happened to Morales against Zahir Raheem.

It happened to Kessler, Abraham and Froch once they signed to fight Ward.

That is why I and many other students of the game place so much emphasis on who not only fights but wins against champions/those who are ranked 1st, 2nd or 3rd in any given division CONSISTENTLY.

That alone is the most important factor when weighing who is great and a stand out talent.

You may find this hard to believe, but I really enjoy watching Manny Pacquiao fight. The man comes to ****!!! However, he dims his own star much in the same way that Lennox Lewis did by seeking those who have marketable names instead of fighting those who are the best talent at the time.

Aside from Marquez, its been YEARS since Manny has made an attempt to stand out by doing something special. Manny has had the opportunities to fight men while they are ranked #1, 2 and 3. He has declined EVERY TIME. He's consistently waited for someone else to beat them first before he finds the willingness to sign to fight.

I'm not sorry for saying that matching someone else's feat AFTER THE FACT does not hold the same value as the pioneer who took the risk when his opponent was on top!

Boxing deserves better fans. Really.