The Battle

For those of you who took my advice and caught the Cotto-Margarito war last night, you can thank me later. If you didn't, you can catch up to everyone else by watching the replay on HBO this Saturday.

What an amazing fight. Cotto dominated the first 5 or so rounds by moving, jabbing, and countering Margarito, occasionally standing and trading a few punches, usually landing the cleaner, harder shots.

But Margarito never slowed, and gradually started to wear Cotto down. By the end of the sixth, Cotto looked tired and weak-legged. He wasn't able to evade Margarito as well as he had in the first few rounds. He spent more time leaning against the ropes or backed into corners. His counters were not as crisp.

In the ninth, Cotto bounced back to win his first round in a while. He seemed to have the upper hand in the first two minutes of the tenth as well. At this point the fight was very close on the cards, but it looked like Cotto had gotten his second wind. If he could have held on to win the tenth, and then grabbed either the eleventh or twelfth, the fight could have been his.

Maybe Cotto was thinking the same thing and let his concentration lapse a bit as he got caught and hurt with a barrage of punches by Margarito. This was the final turning point of the fight. Cotto managed to make it through the tenth round. He came out for the eleventh and tried to land some combinations, but it looked like a last-ditch effort. Margarito kept pounding on Cotto, finally forcing him to take a knee. He got up, but quickly backed into the opposite corner and took a knee again without taking a punch, forcing his corner to throw in the towel and end the fight. Margarito is the new welterweight champion.

Cotto fought a great fight, and would have knocked out almost any other welterweight in the world with the punches he landed in the first six rounds. But he did make two tactical decisions, which, in my opinion, were mistakes:

1) When he was in control of the fight in the first few rounds, he never pressed the action. Even after he landed a 3-punch combination, he would immediately back away and allow Margarito to come to him again. It seemed like he had just decided at the beginning there was no way he could KO Margarito, so he should just pile up punches and try not to get KO'ed himself. But this took away from his natural aggressiveness as a fighter (if this was the first time you saw Cotto fight, you would have no idea that in 95% of his prior fights HE was the one coming forward, pushing the action), and allowed Margarito to return to his gameplan of stalking down Cotto easily. Tony is not a great counterpuncher. Force him to lock up or punch back while he's on defense. This is in turn your best defense. It's very very tough to withstand 12 rounds of Tony coming towards you. Some part of the best defense against that is offense. Of course Cotto doesn't want to get into 12 rounds of standing and trading with Margarito, but he should stay on the attack when he lands well.

2) Cotto didn't go to the body enough in the first six rounds. It's pretty well established that Margarito can't really be hurt with head punches. They look great to the judges, but they just don't phase him, no matter how hard they land, and therefore don't retard his offense later in the fight. Going to the body won't look quite as good, but every punch to the ribcage you get in early takes away from Margarito's wind and power late, which would have been crucial for Cotto.

A truly exhilirating night of boxing. As for a rematch, I think both fighters should "see other people" before reuniting sometime next year. Margarito-Williams 2 now seems to be in order. Cotto has a variety of options. A rematch with Shane Mosley after Shane beats the crap out of Mayorga would be nice, as their first fight was very competitive. He could also fight Joshua Clottey if Clottey beats Judah. Who knows, maybe he'll still get to fight Oscar. Whatever their future holds, I will certainly be tuning in any time either of these two fighters enters the ring.

-BRUECHIPS

P.S. - Take this with a grain of salt as I am kind of a Floyd nut-hugger, but one thing I took away from the fight last night, as great as both guys were, is that neither can beat Floyd Mayweather. I heard a lot of people saying that after last night, Floyd would be too scared to come out of retirement to face Margarito. Please. What you saw in the first six rounds is what you would see for twelve rounds if Floyd fought Margarito. Floyd is faster than Cotto, both with his hands and his feet, and would avoid a lot of the punishment that Cotto took even while he was winning. In addition, Floyd's conditioning is just unreal. You never ever even get a HINT of him tiring down the stretch. He could run circles around Margarito all night long. He wouldn't knock him out, and it probably wouldn't be that great to watch. I would still give Cotto a better chance against Floyd, but his apparent abandonment of the body attack he carried with him at 140 would hurt him against Mayweather. It would be a more interesting fight than Margarito-Mayweather though. If Cotto went back to the stalking, punishing style he employed against Zab Judah, he might have a chance. But in his recent fights vs. Mosley, Margarito, and even the outmatched Gomez, he's favored a more measured, technical approach, and nobody fights in that style better than Mayweather.