My thoughts on how Cotto can use the tools at his disposal to beat Mayweather

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I re-watched the fight with Mosley today; what a performance. Very cohesive blend of defensive responsibility, offensive sharpness, and gamesmanship. If Cotto can recapture and even add onto that holistic cohesion, Mayweather is in for a tough fight.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq3KXCptB3E[/ame]

 

I agree. Not only was he sharp, but he was thinking in there and setting traps with a variety of punches. His right hand looked great in this fight, and he was throwing it as a lead, as a counter, and behind a feinted jab. He had great success whenever he switched to southpaw as well.

One thing I noticed was that Miguel tucks his chin well (formerly in too high of a guard that he's corrected) so that the only right hands that really land are chopping overhand rights that land on the top of his head, as opposed to his chin, though he did get hit hard on the chin by Shane and surpsingly shook it off. The problem is that he reacts to them by ducking down, which takes some steam off of it, but doesn't evade it all together. Against Margarito though, I saw him actually slipping outside of the right hand, instead of just ducking down, which he was still doing in the Mayorga fight. Avoiding openings for a right hand is definitely essential for his fight with Floyd, and it's good to note that should his confidence truly return, it's highly doubtful Floyd matches the effectiveness of Shane's right hand power.

 

Well, since nobody followed up, I'll comment on what Floyd showed us in sparring. We can all assume that we didn't see anything they didn't want us to, but it was a quality session. Omar Henry looked like a quality sparring partner, and I was reminded of a few things.

One is that while Cotto should pressure Floyd and look to do work on the inside, it's probably better that he doesn't stay there. Nestling into a rhythm in the pocket would likely benefit Floyd more than it would Cotto. Floyd is amazingly tight defensively on the inside, and is too sharp with his shots to simply eat through round after round. I doubt Floyd has enough movement, especially at this age, to rely on a defensive pot-shotting game-plan. Once Cotto does find him against the ropes, I think that he would do well to get his shots in, and then take a step back. Breaking rhythm without letting him escape entirely allows him to control when punches are thrown, while minimizing the windows Floyd has to counter him. Mayweather is used to fighters bum-rushing him, and I think it will be harder to adapt to someone who muscles their way into position, throws a combination, then backs away.

Switching to a mobile game-plan after Floyd starts pressuring is still something I'd encourage; if Floyd's feet aren't set, then he's not sure his punch will land, and he'll throw far less.

Another thing I noticed was that Floyd's guard is susceptible to the right hand to the body. It seems like a punch that's always there, but isn't always taken advantage of. Henry's hardest shots to the body were around the elbow towards the back. This brings me to my next point, which is that Henry did indeed have good success when he switched southpaw. Circling right before landing a straight left or a right hook downstairs did very well for him, especially since Floyd couldn't set himself to throw that laser right hand. It's a dynamic that Cotto should absolutely take advantage of.

Again, this was only a sparring session and no secrets were about to be revealed on a live stream, but it was a small look into what Floyd is looking like right now.

 

To keep building on some of the dynamics I outlined and continue to outline in the thread, here's a reference to the most intriguing training clip I've seen so far:

Here are some other insightful posts from the same thread:

From another thread:

What do you guys think? Is it consistent with the alternate plan I and others recommended or criticized? Keep this thread nut-hug-free.