Mayweather should be celebrating right now...

Because he can now unretire, fight Margarito instead of Cotto for a huge sum of money, and get praised for it big time when he wins. All while Cotto, the man who by all reasonable logic/analysis should beat him, stands on the side and doesn't get to fight Floyd, probably ever. Very sad.

I give all the credit in the world to Margarito, an unbelievably tough fighter who had the mentality of a man who would truly not be denied tonight. He deserves a payday for his performance. But I am confident that Cotto would beat him in a rematch and I hope that the fight happens before anything else. Cotto was clearly beating him on the scorecards when the fight was stopped (not the judges' ridiculous scorecards, but realistic boxing fan scorecards) and if he simply fought smarter he would have won IMO. His gameplan to waste energy moving around constantly was dumb, especially considering that he could have had success fighting inside, pushing Margarito back and following up after landing flush punches, could have punched to the body A LOT more and broken/slowed him down (that's the way to break a tough-chinned fighter down, not box him and counter to the head), and could have clinched when he needed to slow the pace down. Cotto could have done much, much better. Margarito could never do better than this IMO and I mean no disrespect to this true warrior who deserves a ton of respect and admiration. He's also fortunate that his face didn't get messed up like it did many times against much worse fighters and Cotto's nose also seemed to get broken early in the fight.

This is the first time I've gotten the winner of a fight wrong when I thought it was about as guaranteed as it gets since I've started watching boxing seriously, so it's a huge shock. I knew the possibility of an upset like this always exists, but this is the first time I've experienced it live. I'm probably not going to be so arrogant about picks like this in the future (ruling out the underdog winning and making it seem like it's nearly impossible for him to win), but I still believe that Cotto was the obvious, logical pick and he simply didn't fight the correct fight. If he did, he would have won IMO. Credit again to Margarito though, lets hope for a rematch and another great fight. Maybe a trilogy (or just rematch if Marg wins again) and then the winner fights Mayweather. ****, I really don't want to see Mayweather-Margarito..

Just wanted to get some thoughts out there. It's very sad to see one of my favorite fighters lose like this, especially knowing that he could have done better if he fought differently IMO. Can't imagine what Cotto is going through right now. Later.

 

Yes it would be more money, but he understands that Cotto is a much tougher fight for him. It's not even comparable. Anyone could see how a pure safety-first defensive boxer like Mayweather would dominate Margarito, but struggle greatly with Cotto's elite technical pressure style.

 

That's one of the reasons why I'm so surprised he wasn't throwing to the body more. Cotto is the best body puncher in the sport and he should understand better than anybody that breaking a tough chinned fighter down involves a lot of body punching, yet it didn't seem to be a part of his gameplan since the start of the fight.

 

I think Cotto was tired as much from Margarito's punching as from the constant moving and looks he was giving. Cotto could have taken some risks and went to the body a lot more early on in the fight. He's much faster than Marg (he even dominated most of their exchanges when they would trade) and he could have gotten off hard body shots while still fighting safe. He didn't follow up with body punches after connecting to the head, even though he had safe opportunities to do so. I guess he just expected to outbox Margarito for 12 rounds and didn't care about breaking him down in the fight. Then he found himself extremely tired late in the fight and broke down himself (again, because of the moving just as much as because of Margarito's punches). A lot of the situations where Margarito was teeing off on the ropes could have been prevented with a simple clinch. If Cotto wanted to fight like a counterpunching boxer stylist, he should have at least clinched like all good defensive boxers know how to do well when they need to.

You saw what happened in this fight. Cotto fought in a defensive style often, but did it while wasting a lot more energy than Floyd does and getting hit more than Mayweather would. Floyd is obviously way more comfortable with that type of fight than Cotto is (fighting like that for the first time in his career). A fighter as sloppy and wide as Margarito is made for Floyd. Cotto on the other hand, the technical pressuring elite fighter Cotto, is an absolute nightmare for Floyd though. Anybody could see that.

 

IMO, Cotto's strategy clearly wasn't the best one that he could have used and I was thinking that during the fight, not just afterwards. I personally don't understand why he was fighting that way from the start and was worrying a bit when he wasn't throwing much to the body. Against an opponent like Margarito, breaking the body down is a must. He didn't need to waste energy as much as he did, moving around so much. I was also very surprised that Margarito's skin held up so well during the fight His chin was a bit of a surprise, but not really. I expected Margo to take those types of shots, I just thought Cotto would start breaking him down to the body and overwhelming him more with follow up combinations after landing his jab, not just boxing safely the entire time. The defensive boxing plan wasn't a good one and the execution of it wasn't as good as it could have been either. Cotto got a little careless on the ropes sometimes and also didn't clinch when he needed to. If there's a rematch, maybe we'll be able to see how Margarito deals with a more offensive Cotto looking to break him down, not just outbox him.

And I lost a pretty big sum of money on Cotto too. Oh well, **** happens. I shouldn't be so arrogant, but that's just the way I am a lot of times when it comes to discussing boxing. It's alright though, I had a very good summer boxing betting-wise up until this fight.. this just balances out my winnings, I'm still up by a pretty nice amount. I obviously regret betting as much as I did on Cotto because I very rarely put that much on fights (and Cotto is a vulnerable fighter, just didn't the fight could possibly go the way it did). I definitely won't be going that big on a fighter with chin/durablity problems again, or maybe that big on anything period. This is the first time I've lost big and it feels annoying because of all the analysis work that was put in to smaller fights where I bet 5% of this, but went up very consistently. I'm more disappointed with Cotto losing because I'm a very big fan of his more than anything else though and I truly mean that.. just really shocking to see him down on the canvas like that on one knee, then not being able to come back and Margarito just finishing him off. I started thinking about Povetkin getting stopped one day, Guzman getting stopped one day, etc. Sad to think about, but hey, that's boxing. Gotta move on and not think too much about your favorite fighter's career lows. It's gonna be hard watching this fight in the future, especially if Cotto doesn't get the opportunity to have a rematch. There are still many fights that are hard for me to watch, like Jones/Pac 1 against Barrera, etc. Anyways, I'm going off on a bunch of other things now. ****, I'm extremely passionate about following boxing, sometimes too passionate. Oh well, these low points make the high points that much better. Goodnight!