Fight of the Week #22: Cotto v. Margarito I & II

I wasnt scoring round for round but i had cotto ahead both fights (although margarito was closing the gap in the 1st one).

Cotto had an excellent strategy but i cannot understand why he refused to go to the body. You'd think a veteran like him would at least go for it with a guy who tons of stamina pursuing him. Even Emmanuel Stewart was confused since according to him, cotto was one if the best body punchers in the sport and a well rounded puncher.

Margarito showed how limited he was regardless of the stoppage. Slow feet, easy to hit, lacking a jab or head movement, cant cut off the ring. I hadn't seen these fights in their entirety until 2 days ago and with the way people hype this guy up, you would have thought he'd be Henry Amrstrong and Barrera combined. The guy only had as much success as he did due to his huge size at 147 and his ridiculous stamina. If he lacked either trait i very much doubt he'd even be remembered. The guy wasnt convincingly beating cotto in either fight, was demolished by the much smaller Mosley and pacquiao but this is the guy everyone said would "destroy" mayweather and was ducked by him??? Only an idiot who has an utter lack of boxing knowledge would make such a claim.

As for the hand wraps thing, i dont believe it was a coincidence he failed to have that kind of effect on a decent opponent bedore or since. Likewise, cotto's skin tissue held up in the rematch and indeed every fight afterwards he hasnt looked that bad. Im not saying this is evidence for sure, but its damn near impossible to overlook or explain.

 

Fight 2:
Cotto dominated this one. Stoppage was a shame but wouldn't have impacted the result as Margarito was on his way to a lopsided points loss.

Cotto seemed to want to make a point of showing his strength in there, pushing Margarito back on several occasions and jockeying for supremacy in the clinches rather than letting the referee break them.

As has been noted, Margarito's punches didn't seem to hurt Cotto at all this time. I struggled to give him a round, although he was always competitive and I don't think he would have been stopped by Cotto's power had the eye injury not occurred.

Not a patch on their first fight, obviously.