Why giving Mosley no chance against Cotto was a sound prediction.

Yours resembles a Chart/Curve of a Normal Probability Distibution Function - returns the cumulative probability from zero up to some input value of a random variable X.

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Let's say that the random variable X is Cotto's success from 0 value( total unsuccess) to 100 ( total success). First you have to give a mean value for the Cotto 's success in the population of similar cases ( past fights where there was a 2 to 1 slight favourite) - let's make it 70 the mean value and the standard deviation 4.5 ( or any other values you calculate or simply give)... If you want to find the probability that the random variable ( Cotto's success from 0 to 100) is greater than 75, use a scientific calculator and use fuction normalcdf(75,-1E99, 70, 4.55) - 1 E99 is the smallest value the calculator can return -1 *10**99 - and the fuction will return .13326 - The probability of Cotto's success being superior to value 75 ( from 0 to 100) is only 13.326%... Therefore, Cotto would hardly have total success ( knockout) or total unsuccess ( being knocked out)... The probability of the value being between 65 to 80 ( Cotto success superior to 50 and less than 100 covers the range of cases from narrow decision to Cotto to large points decision for Cotto) - normalcdf (65,80,70,4.5) = .8536 or returns 85.361% of probability that Cotto would have sucess from 65 to 80 ( Cotto wins a comfortable but not large points decision).

 

Yes, I admit that giving Mosley a chance to win was not as sound as Cotto winning but we are just human beings n sometimes, the heart speaks louder than the mind - Mosley is a very pleasing technical boxer that could have used that asset of his to overcome Cotto's age/strength/above-average skill but didn't - yours was a more level-headed prediction.