Duelling States Of Denial: The Denying Of Canelo Alvarez Vs. Miguel Cotto Denial

“I could deny it if I liked. I could deny anything if I liked.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest


To get my bias out of the way I'm not the biggest fan of Cotto and only recently have I started liking Canelo Alvarez, but I'm still not entirely sold on him either.


I see many fans on this site denying the legitimacy of Canelo Alvarez and the real talent that he's becoming, because of flaws they've seen in him previously, or because of Jose Miguel Cotto landing a perfect punch that wobbled him momentarily.

Let's think about the Cotto punch. Canelo was 19 Years Old, and it was a step up match for him and to that point he hadn't fought any big punchers, Jose while maybe not the puncher his brother is, had a respectable 23 KO's in his 31 matches at the time, he had a 63% KO ratio. Jose hit Canelo with a hard flush left hook right on the chin, he staggered into the ropes and Jose opened up a flurry on Canelo and landed between 6 and 8 more flush shots while he was on the ropes, yet he couldn't put him down. Canelo persevered, weathered the storm and stopped Jose, still the Only time he's ever been stopped. Most fighters at one time in their career have been hit by a perfect punch that they were not expecting and been dropped or staggered by it, and Canelo was incredibly young at the time and since then he's has developed a slightly better defense, and seems to have learned from that experience.

Now let's Take a Look at Canelo's Recent Resume.
James Kirkland-

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Erislandy Lara-

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Lara is maybe one of the hardest to look good against fighters in boxing today, and he also has decent power on top of that, everyone thought it was a bad idea for Canelo to fight him, and that he would be completely outclassed. Well Lara had a few good rounds at the beginning of the match, when Canelo was attempting to box with him, that strategy wasn't working out so Canelo decided to start pressuring and working his body. Lara didn't respond to that very well, and then the running began and didn't stop until the end of the match. It was a close match Canelo won 7-5 on my card, I could see 6-6, but in no scenario do I see Lara winning cleanly in that match. Regardless Canelo looked better than anyone to date against the feared boogieman of LMW, which isn't easy to do.

Alfredo Angulo-

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Was Alfredo past it, Maybe. Was he a little weight drained, Yes. But no one foresaw how that match would play out, Canelo coming out and taking the fight to Perro and hurting him to the body in the first round, taking away any confidence Angulo may have had going into the match. He dominated Angulo better than anyone since James Kirkland. Was never hurt by Angulo once and even though it may be a slightly tainted win, it was still impressive the way he accomplished it.

Floyd Mayweather Jr.-

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He tried to outbox maybe the best pure boxer in the sport no shock he lost using that strategy. Although I doubt he'd make the same mistake again in a rematch. As evidenced by the way he performed against Lara. And in the end he lost to the P4P Number 1 fighter in the world, not very shocking. Floyd also knew Canelo wasn't on his level yet and struck while the iron was hot.

Austin Trout-

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Coming off of a dominant performance shutting out Miguel Cotto, Trout is not an easy guy to look good against, yet Canelo looked great at times all the way up to dropping Austin for the first time in his career something Miguel couldn't accomplish, but Gasnelo took his foot off the accelerator and cruised due to the open scoring that had him in an unassailable lead against Trout. It was a close fight and because of the KD Canelo won.

Josesito Lopez-

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Moving up it weight 2 divisions, it was not that impressive, but he still looked damn good.

Shane Mosley-

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Old and past it, but he dominated him for 12 rounds. Fairly impressive but that was to be expected.

Canelo has learned from his past mistakes and is becoming a well rounded potentially great fighter, and people need to remember he's only 24, what he's accomplished at his young age is very impressive when you take into consideration the craftiness and skill of a lot of his opponents to date. I think many fans are in Denial of just how good Canelo is becoming right before our eyes. And how much better he could potentially get.

Also he fights the best and hardest to look good against opponents and looks pretty good against them.



And now to Cotto, his glory days at Light Welterweight are long gone and as impressive as he may seem since hooking up with Freddie we've seen this same song and dance many time before, he looked good with his Father until he lost, he looked good with Steward but they didn't fit, and then he looked very impressive with Diaz until he lost and now with Roach he looks impressive but.... alas it is an illusuion. Miguel Cotto is not a killing machine reborn, he beat a complete loser in Delvin and crippled shell of Maravilla.

The Cotto Fan's Denial is Jarring Let's Take a Look.
Daniel Geale-

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Sergio Martinez-

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He had spent the majority of the previous year on crutches and rehabbing his leg injuries he was a shell of what he was in the Murray match, in which he was shell of what he was against Chavez Jr. Worthless win.

Delvin Rodriguez-

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Average ESPN level fighter, it was a decent win, looked good but nothing Impressive.

Austin Trout-

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Completely outclassed and outboxed from start to finish, he had minimal success with Trout, looked awful against the superior boxer, and was beginning to wear down towards the end of the match, against a fairly feather fisted fighter.

Floyd Mayweather Jr.-

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He had a few good rounds, bloodied Floyd's nose, lost 8-4, Maidana had more success, and on top of that Floyd stunned and almost dropped him in the last round, Floyd DID NOT fear Cotto's power.

Antonio Margarito-

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The match was starting to go in the same direction as the first, at the time of the stoppage, Pacquiao won the match for him, he adjusted a little by pivoting to the left and hitting Margarito in his surgically repaired eye, so what.

Ricardo Mayorga-

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Didn't look great, Mayorga hit him flush far too often, but outboxing Ricardo isn't that hard, Ricardo broke his wrist, another lucky injury, okay win for Miguel.

Yuri Foreman-

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Foreman's knee tore, tainted win.

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All due to or tainted by Injuries.

And for the Canelo detractors who love to point out the Jose Cotto shot.
Well Cotto was dropped 2 times by Manny, took a knee 2 times against Margarito, Floyd wobbled him, Judah badly wobbled him, Torres badly wobbled him, Corley wobbled him, Clottey hurt him and he was wearing down pretty bad against Trout and Margarito in the 2nd fight as well. But of course none of that seems to matter to his fans.

And they love to point out how close the Canelo/Lara and Canelo/Trout matches were. But they fail to adequately remember two of Cotto's most highly touted wins against Mosley and Clottey were controversial near, if not out and out draws.

Miguel Cotto fans are in a complete state of denial, and are unwilling to see just how flawed Miguel has been for the past 5 years, he has 1 win that is untainted by some form of injury forced stoppage. Everytime Miguel steps in the ring with someone who's healthy he falters.

Canelo is younger than Cotto.
Canelo hits harder than Cotto.
Canelo is bigger than Cotto.
Canelo has better recent wins than Cotto.
Canelo has a better chin than Cotto.

Canelo will win with ease.:deal

His detractors don't want to admit it, and give Canelo credit he deserves for getting better, they are Denying that reality.
Fans want to believe Cotto is much better than he really is, and Denying the reality of how average to bad Cotto has recently looked.

 

Cotto fans will start making excuses the minute Cotto's knee hits the canvass with a innumerable amount of reasons why Cotto wasn't on his game that night and how he'll bounce back and go on to school GGG. Or how with his astonishing skills he'll easily shut out Lemieux.

 

Like I said I'm not entirely sold on Canelo either, but the entire thread is focused inside the Canelo/Cotto microcosm, just them and their fans reactions, I think both of them would be steamrolled by GGG, possibly Lemieux, Khytrov and quite a few other MW's. And I'm no fan of Cotto's and my bias may shade my assessment on this one, so I can see how I look like I'm being unfair, because I might be a little bit or a lot.

As far as my opinion on Josesito/Delvin I'm basing the way I framed the argument like this, Josesito was coming off of breaking Victor's jaw, which to many casual fans looked very impressive and he fought quite well at 147, so the few months he had to move up to 154 didn't seem like much of a stretch especially since he's 5'10, although I don't rate the win very highly and I don't think many of Canelo's fans do either.

But the Delvin win on the other hand the Cotto fans went absolutely insane with glee and proclaimed him to back to his old 140 self after the win, so their reaction in making seem like something special is the reason I was so dismissive of the win. Had Canelo's fans tried to make a bigger deal out of the Josesito win I would have been more dismissive as well.

As far as Lara and Trout go I like Trout far more than most do, I think he's very underrated and Lara I think is talented but flawed and depending on the night can look amazing or lackluster. But based in the Canlo Cotto microcosm, Trout shut out Cotto and Canelo performed well and dropped him pretty hard, while he Canelo didn't look amazing against Trout and it was a drawish match, still he performed far better than Miguel did.

And IMO Lara would dominate Cotto from start to finish similar to the manner in which Trout did. So while I may not think Lara is that great, he's a much better win than a Mayorga or Foreman.

Canelo also gets a lot of grief about the close matches he has, yet everyone seems to forget that Cotto best wins other than Judah and Malignaggi were razor thin wins in matches against Mosley and Clottey which could have gone either way as well.

 

:hat

 

Not sold on 154.... how about 160, like many people seem to be:-(