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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Miguel Cotto: The Damage Threshold

So it is that Miguel Cotto will face Manny Pacquiao on November 14th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The die has been cast, and it has landed irrefutably in Cotto’s favor. Not surprising the choice, one that put to an end the surge of ruminations regarding who the pound for pound king would take on next. At this point, Pacquiao and his trainer, Freddie Roach, are seemingly incapable of selecting an opponent who does not attract some kind of negative and questioning focus. The outcomes of Pacquiao’s last two fights have left him to be cast in an extreme and contrasting light. He is either touted for being considered thoroughly unbeatable, or he is derided for being an inflated talent. His skeptics accuse him of choosing his opponents based on perceived weaknesses, and then exploiting those weaknesses to validate his position as the best fighter in the world.

Hindsight is a dangerous weapon; when Pacquiao’s efforts in the ring have been met with almost superhuman success, it has become habitual to try and decipher the elemental shortcomings of his opponent that enabled that success. De La Hoya was old and weight drained; Hatton was primitively skilled and damaged by Mayweather. Rarely afforded the consideration of being a balanced and supremely gifted fighter, Pacquiao is forced to vacillate between two poles; one of near blind admiration, and the other of unfounded disdain. The legitimacy of his claim to the throne is being constantly challenged.

Miguel Cotto is the next man called to stand opposite Manny Pacquiao in the ring. He is a fighter whose recent past has plagued him. Shadows of doubt and the stresses of failure have been constant haunts. Cotto’s linear progression has been dramatically altered from what was anticipated a couple of years back. At that time, he was considered a fighter with near limitless potential; he was a prized commodity in the welterweight division, a gleaming gem in the crown of Bob Arum. Cotto was an integral part of Top Rank’s collection, and one of a small handful of fighters who siphoned power from the ever expanding might of Golden Boy Promotions. He garnered the bittersweet reputation of being the man to beat. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. was incessantly hounded for dodging Cotto at every turn. Prior to his arguable downslide, Cotto appeared every bit the well- rounded boxer; he was strong, a solid puncher, and had the intelligence necessary to effectively intersperse offense and defense. He was the complete package.

Cotto’s last three bouts changed the landscape for him; they have thrown into doubt the current status of his one-time heralded abilities, as well as his tenacity, and the microscope of public observation is stifling. Cotto would have had to withstand the unwanted suspicions regardless of his upcoming bout, because his recent showings have not been as dynamic and dominating as previous ones. Undoubtedly though, part of the fascination with Cotto’s possible deterioration has as much to do with Pacquiao as it does with him. The rationale is that if Cotto loses, critics of Pacquiao will be fully prepared to point to Cotto’s obvious deficiencies entering into the fight. Depending on the manner of Cotto’s loss, Pacquiao will again be esteemed as the unquestionable king, or insulted for battering a fighter in obvious decline. This is the nature of the focus being granted to Cotto, and opinions of his position as a still viable contender vary widely. Is it possible to assess ahead of the fact what his condition will be when he enters the ring in November? Look closely at the purported damage that Cotto suffered, and what kind of toll it may or may not have taken.

The microscope’s sight is adjusted more closely in July of 2008, the time of Cotto’s bout with Antonio Margarito. The fight promised to be a barn burner, and it didn’t disappoint. The action never lulled; it was an instant candidate for fight of the year honors. Prior to the fight, most had Cotto favored with the edge over Margarito. Margarito had frequently voiced complaints that he was avoided by the top welterweights, citing nonexistent contests with Mayweather and Mosley, to name a couple. Margarito was thought of as a dangerous undertaking, one where the reward of a win did not outweigh the risk of a loss. Margarito had lost to Paul Williams before the Cotto fight, but it was at a time when the threat of Williams was not fully understood, and the loss was attributed more to Margarito’s slow start than it was to Williams’ prowess. As such, the loss did little to diminish the threat of Margarito. It remained the case that few fighters were willing to engage with him, and his opponents were comprised of those trying to make an impression in the division, those just outside of the established order, such as Williams and Joshua Clottey.

The night of July 26th, 2008, began very much in the way that it was expected to begin. When Cotto met Margarito in the ring, both fighters looked determined to win. They came armed with their individual strengths, along with the pride of the countries they represented. In the build up to the fight, much was made of the classic Mexican – Puerto Rican rivalry. The styles of the fighters promised to make for an interesting clash; Cotto with his estimable boxing skills taking on the resilient and powerful Margarito. In the early rounds, Cotto was winning handily. He was out boxing Margarito, exposing his slower pace and forcing him to miss with his punches. Cotto’s tactics enabled him to land his own shots, which freakishly, but unsurprisingly, seemed to have little effect on Margarito. There was undoubtedly confidence among Margarito’s camp that he would not be able to win on points. His chance, then, would come from patience and persistence, which might gradually wear Cotto down. It was the right plan. In the later rounds, Cotto began to diminish, his punch output declined, his face was bloodied, and he was visibly becoming fatigued. In the 11th round of the fight, Cotto’s suffering came to an end, at least as far as the punishment in the ring was concerned. The punishment outside the ring was just beginning.

The manner of Cotto’s loss reflected poorly on him. Literally overnight, he was burdened by the weight of having to live a shameful act down. Echoes of Roberto Duran and "no mas" would have been raging in his mind. He had taken a knee. This is something a fighter does not do. Those who are perceived to have given up are not quickly forgiven. It changed the way many viewed Cotto, prompting them not just to question his integrity as a fighter, but also his heart. It became a personal assault. Cotto needed to take time; he needed to assimilate what had happened, to try to recover from it, and to fight off his own personal demons that materialized with the loss. Cotto had an unenviable challenge laid out before him, because his demons were joined by the demons of others, those set on him by the court of public opinion.

Months after the bout, Cotto experienced a mild form of vindication, though uncertain terms prevented his loss from being completely negated. On January 24th, 2009, Antonio Margarito was set to fight Shane Mosley. Before the fight took place, Mosley’s trainer, Nazim Richardson, noticed that something was wrong with Margarito’s hand wraps. The wraps were confiscated and later tested to reveal traces of a substance similar to plaster of Paris. It cannot be known how long Margarito’s camp had been engaging in this unscrupulous practice, and whether or not it might have been a direct contributor to the Mexican fighter’s notorious punching power. Is it possible that the hand wraps were tainted during the Cotto fight? Might that explain Cotto’s conduct in the ring that night? It is one thing to lose heart and cave beneath the punishment that is brought on by a severe beating; it is quite another to feel instinctively that something is wrong, to know self- limits, and to respond to them.

When Cotto was ready to fight again, it was in February against England native, Michael Jennings. For all intensive purposes, it was designed to be a confidence builder for Cotto. It was a fight that would serve to lessen the bitter taste left behind by the Margarito bout. Cotto won the fight by TKO in the fifth round.

Following his defeat of Jennings, Cotto was next slated to take on a challenger who would serve as a more accurate barometer of his perseverance. Ghanaian contender Joshua Clottey has been intensely hungry to show himself in the elite ranks. In a division as swollen with talent as the welterweight is, being considered one of the elite is not a singular designation. It is a broader acknowledgment, one that stretches across the division spectrum. An elite welterweight is an elite fighter, period. Clottey himself is certainly familiar with the policy of avoidance frequently implemented in the fight game. He was avoided for the same reason Margarito was. Their shared predicament of being uncommercial threats left them to meet each other in the ring. Clottey fought hard, and reputedly with a broken hand, standing toe to toe with Margarito for twelve rounds, finally losing a unanimous decision.

In the fight between Cotto and Clottey, the Ghanaian fighter began with the intention to destroy the man in front of him. It was as though he had ingested all of Cotto’s demons, and was primed to regurgitate the combined malevolent force into his face. There is a distortion created by desperation, a clouding of the ability to calculate, that will make fighters conduct themselves in a way that contradicts their game plan. Clottey’s eagerness to grasp at the golden mantle caused him to attack Cotto in an often unfocused and overly aggressive manner. Cotto had his hands full, trying to temper the wild and awkward assailant coming toward him. Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise; the manic tempo of the fight left no chance to lapse into drawn out reflection, or to become consumed with self-doubt.

In the third round, a head butt opened a gash over Cotto’s left eye. Blood obstructed his vision. He must have been momentarily shaken by an almost ghostly reminder of his falling to Margarito, as if the grim reaper himself had clipped Cotto’s brow with his scythe. How he would conduct himself from the point of the cut on would determine his heart.

Clottey presented a challenge that was frenetic, pressurizing, and often frustrating. The result of the fight was an unfulfilling split decision; one that did little to resolve in the eyes of some, the enigma of Cotto’s condition. There were those who believed that Clottey had won the fight. There were those who conceded that Cotto had won, but that he looked terrible in the performance. The fight wasn’t enough to prove that Cotto was, in fact, still the embodiment of his former glory. As it was, Clottey’s deportment during and after the fight did nothing to esteem him, either. Cotto would need to turn another stone for his chance at redemption.

Manny Pacquiao provides him with the chance.

What happens in the end? Pacquiao may be pound for pound king, but that illustrious title was never one that was far from the hands of his most recent challenger. There’s no doubt that there is a version of Cotto who possesses the ability to conquer Pacquiao. The question, though, is whether the older version, the one before all the southward turning, is also the current version. Ideally, the events of November 14th will finally reveal the truth, and Cotto may finally rid himself of the burden he’s carried, whether it end in his victory or defeat.

Source: http://www.8countnews.com/news/125/ARTICLE/1858/2009-08-26.html

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