LAS VEGAS -- The competitive crux of the most anticipated fight in 2009 comes down to Manny Pacquiao's whirlwind speed against what Miguel Cotto has left.
The first is undeniable. It showed in the paint job Pacquiao applied to Oscar De La Hoya and the one-punch starching of Ricky Hatton that stunned the boxing world with its precision violence.
The second, we will discover Saturday night.
What we do know is if Cotto-Pacquiao had been made 16 months ago, Cotto would have been a solid favorite and everyone would have questioned why Pacquiao moved up in weight for such a challenge.
That was before De La Hoya, before Hatton.
And it was before the devastating beating Cotto took in his only loss, in July 2008, when Antonio Margarito battered and discouraged him until, face puffy and eyes betraying confusion, he opted to save himself.
Quitting was the right thing. Never before had Cotto shown anything that remotely resembled the kind of trouble he experienced that night. And in two fights since, victories against Michael Jennings and Joshua Clottey, the 34-1 Puerto Rican has yet to show the same fire.
It happens that way. It is the reason odds favor Pacquiao by exactly 3-1, if such odds were expressed in man-to-man wagering rather than with bookmaking juice factored in, and it is why the leading trainer in boxing today, Freddie Roach, said the fight is a foregone conclusion.
"I don't think he's the same fighter," Roach, who trains Pacquiao, said of Cotto. "You watch him before, you watch him after, he's not the same. Maybe his confidence has grown back, but when you get knocked out for the first time in your life, and take a beating like that, mentally it has to affect you. It affects everybody. Everybody asks how you come back from that."
Cotto faced all those questions Wednesday. He insisted he has recovered, both physically and mentally.
When the fight was made, Roach said he thought it was an enormous challenge for Pacquiao.
He said that opinion was forged because he studied the pre-Margarito fights first, and has changed since studying Cotto's past two fights.
"He's not the same guy," Roach said. "He's slower. He makes mistakes. He has no coach to adjust his mistakes. He cocks his left hand before he throws it, he telegraphs his punches now, and he doesn't have anyone to correct him."
The boxing public gave Cotto a pass for the Margarito beating, a mental asterisk, after the Mexican got caught loading his handwraps with a plaster-like substance before fighting Shane Mosley this year.
Mosley's camp caught him. The California commission made Margarito re-wrap.
Mosley, who lost to Cotto in 2007, beat Margarito. And boxing insiders en masse noted they finally had their reason for why Cotto absorbed such a troublesome beating.
Cotto's camp did not check Margarito's gloves before their fight.
"Someone didn't do their job," Roach said.
Whether Margarito loaded his gloves or not doesn't change the result, or doubts in the aftermath.
"He took a lot of punches and he quit in the fight," Roach said. "When a fighter quits in a fight for the first time, I've seen it change people's lives. Their confidence isn't the same as it used to be. You're not invincible anymore. You're not unbeatable anymore."
Pacquiao also got knocked out twice, early in his career, as a flyweight.
"He came back well, but it took a long time," Roach said.
The trainer said he doesn't think Cotto has had enough time.
"I had 27 fights before I got knocked out for the first time, and it changed my life," Roach said. "I was never quite as confident. I wasn't invincible. When you lose for the first time, it definitely affects you.
"And the thing is, the punishment he took in that fight was severe. He took a bad beating in that fight. And sometimes, you never come back from a beating like that."
E-mail David Mayo at dmayo@grpress.com and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/David_Mayo
Source: mlive.com
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