Pacquiao a cut above Cotto

The exits of Evangelista Cotto and Miguel Diaz had made its own buzz in the revivification process for Miguel Cotto. A lot of it wasn’t in private either as lawsuits were tossed around along with punches and bricks that resulted in a hospital visit, a broken nose, and a wrecked Jaguar.

Miguel Cotto came back after the Margarito loss sporting new large body tattoos to fortify a new look, a fairly new attitude, and got a new, second welterweight belt in the process (the WBO after losing his WBA). First it was the destruction of relatively unknown and truly unheralded Michael Jennings—I’m pretty sure this was a bid to regain championship status—then came the near-upset win against Joshua Clottey which could’ve gone either way I suppose. I give some credit to Miguel though since Clottey is no walk in the park for anyone within his weight reach.

In an interview with Latino boxing network Combat Space, the dismissals of both the uncle/trainer, Evangelista, and renowned cutman, Miguel Diaz, were described as unexpected and undeserved. Financial reasons were speculated but at this time we can never know for sure. With talks that Miguel could be pocketing as much as 10-15 million in the aptly titled “Firepower” card, I find it hard to believe that the dollar signs were the ultimate end-all for the close-knit, family-like team that was once Cotto-Cotto-Diaz.

Although understandably upset about being let go Miguel Diaz, who has had a hand in the careers of Erik Morales, Fernando Vargas, and Daniel Zaragoza, stayed true to his remaining loyalty.

“I could’ve easily worked the Clottey corner [when he fought Miguel]… but for ethical reasons I didn’t do so,” says Diaz.

Although he has already let the opportunity to work a championship fight go to waste due to his distaste for unethical practices when he opted out of providing services for Clottey in his match with Cotto, Diaz won’t do the same this time around.

“I will be working Manny Pacquiao’s corner as the cutman when he fights Miguel”, states Diaz.

In another chilling and captivating addition that should serve as some great food for thought, he goes on to add:

“I am 100% Pacquiao will beat Cotto!”

This Roach-like statement really makes me wonder whether Diaz actually knows or senses something about the two bombers fighting to represent their respective countries on November 14th in Vegas. Or maybe it’s just a delayed reaction to the startling termination that finally just came out. However heated the confrontations were at the time, I was under the impression that it was Miguel and Evangelista that had the sudden bad blood, not Miguel Cotto and Miguel Diaz.

He shares this opinion with 25-champion legendary trainer Freddie Roach. Amir Khan garnered his first world title at age 22 last month in Manchester, England, to make it an unbelievable 25 for the normally soft-spoken trainer. The only difference in prediction is that Roach went on to hint that knockout would be the result.

After Pacquiao’s win over De la Hoya, Roach was quoted as saying that “we will not stay at 147” so he must see some holes somewhere in the Cotto blueprint that would make him retract the assertion that 140 was the Pacman’s proper weight.

The idea of relocating their training camp to Florida was a big issue as well for Cotto’s former team, who were against the proposed move. Miguel Cotto is now trained in Florida by former nutritionist Joe Santiago who has said that “I owe all my knowledge of training to Evangelista Cotto.”

I sure hope for Miguel’s sake that firing the master and hiring the pupil won’t spell trouble for the decorated Boricua. With Pacquiao as his opponent he cannot afford to waste any time in rebuilding a sound team relationship. Although the introduction of Santiago to head of the Cotto support team was made to sound temporary, no other trainer has been named as training begins for the November showdown with the Pacman. Both will sport the 8 ounce Reyes gloves, the puncher’s choice if you will, so I’m sure we will see fireworks in the night of “Firepower”.

As the odds currently hold, if you put your money on Cotto and he wins, consider it doubled—Pacquiao is a surprising, yet unexpected favorite early on. When you judge both of their last three fights, it’s not hard to see why the betting line favors the Filipino slugger. Personally, I don’t know if I stand to differ either considering David Diaz has more head movement that Miguel Cotto does. But part of the potential downfall for the Pacman may be that he walks around at 155 pounds so I would guesstimate that Cotto walks around at upwards of 170, 175 pounds. When he fought a heavier but slower Hatton, Pacquiao proved that his speed was too much while capping it off with a perfect flush left hand to turn out the lights and highlight his power at 140… but against Cotto, at 145, this size difference does mean more power for the Puerto Rican. And we did not see any proven tactics or gameplan when the Hitman was crushed in under two rounds, I believe it was due to the fact that Hatton underestimated Pacquiao and was just basically immediately blazed before he could even figure out what was going on. I see Cotto implementing a more diversified attack that would revolve around working the body—one of the bigger keys in my opinion if Miguel hopes to edge Pacquiao and put an end to his miraculous streak.

So carefully pick your poison because even while the advantages and disadvantages are being dissected, I have a feeling that most of us will go for our hearts and not our heads anyhow. That is the great blessing that comes with heavy-hearted fighters—they come hand in hand with heavy-hearted, loyal fans who bring the support of a nation to back their heroes.

Source: http://diamondboxing.com/newsstory.php?list=9037