Cotto vs. Kirkland @ 150

Well, we still don't know what if any effects of his loss to Marg. Jennings did not prove anything for him. That's why I said about another thread that if Berto wanted a fight with Cotto in June, take it.

 

Cotto would be fighting off of his back foot the entire night just like in the Margarito fight. Cotto isn't some great technical boxer, and he lacks stamina it seems. Kirkland would run right through him.

 

Cotto pretty clearly and obviously would have a lot of trouble with this style. The only concern I had over his punch resistance was somewhat ended against Julio.

The only proviso I'd have on picking Kirkland is he can take it to the body. I think overall when Cotto is smothered he struggles to get to the body though, he's a cerebral fighter that needs time to think.

 

I've seen a lot of Cotto fights. He mostly wins by breaking his opponents down. He takes their heart, and they lose the will to fight and eventually give in. There were 5 guys that I've seen that never lost their heart against Cotto. Those guys are N'Dou, Malignaggi, Torres, Mosley, and Margo. Cotto did not have an easy night with any of those guys. Margo stopped him and Torres almost knocked him out. Kirkland is bigger than all of these guys, has comparable punching power to Torres, Mosley and Margo, and has a big heart just like all of these guys. Kirkland has defensive issues but so does every other guy I mentioned. If Kirkland could make 150 relatively comfortably, he would probably beat Cotto. This is no knock on Cotto. Kirkland is a bad style matchup for Cotto, and has a big advantage in terms of size.

 

What can I say? I don't want to sound like I think I know it all because I don't, I have been wrong before, I will be wrong again, and I would be very happy to be wrong about this, but I'm just trying to be realistic here and your arguments are a reflection of San Rafael's post about using the wrong logic to determine out comes of fights. Height doesn't tell wether a fighter is bigger, it only tells if he's taller (I'm sure you wouldn't say Ali Funeka is bigger then Cotto would you?) There is a difference between their weights also, Cotto started out at 140 and welterweight is the highest weightclass he has fought. Kirkland's lowest weightclass is higher than Cotto's highest weightclass and he has actually fought successfully at Middleweight. I'm not sure how far up Cotto goes up on fight night but I'm pretty sure it's not 165lbs of pure muscle. To see why I think Kirkland wins take a look at my previous posts. There is a big difference between why Gomez was never knocked down when he fought the bigger guys and why I think Kirkland wouldn't be hurt by Cotto's punches. Gomez didn't go down with the big guys because of the competition he was fighting (and they were mostly five round fights), but that's only a testament of Gomez heart, will and skills to an extend, not his size. Kirkland on the other hand doesn't only take punches from those big guys, he is one of those big guys!!!! There's a big difference between facing David and Goliath regardless of how impressive David looked against Goliath