Cotto is a Mirage
I remember watching Cotto back when he was edging out the likes of the once great Zab “Super” Judah and “Sugar” Shane Mosley but he then ran into Antonio Margarito. There is speculation that Margarito had an illegal substance in his wraps, but there’s no way to be sure, plus it really doesn’t matter at this point. After that fight Cotto has looked like a shadow of himself and dropped from great to good. He has never been a pushover but he is nowhere near the Cotto that stopped undefeated Carlos Quintana and also kept putting Alfonso Gomez on the mat.
We fast forward to the Cotto today and he looks like he’s been born again and has found the fountain of youth, but that’s not the case. If you look at the chain of events that has led him to this you can see the foolery that has a lot of people believing the hype.
After his two losses in a row to P4P great Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr and then undefeated Austin Trout, he seemed to regroup and get his bearings back. He then defeated an overmatched Delvin Rodriguez, who is a crowd favorite because of his personality, but in the ring he is mediocre at best. But he is hard not to like and Cotto defeated him in stunning fashion, so it hyped up the win more than normal, but he was in no way a great victory. Then Cotto gets into a war of words with the great Sergio Martinez that has been declining over the past couple years but still has a big name because even though his decrease was evident he had yet to lose. He was coming off a couple surgeries on his legs and when added with his already decline, he got in the ring without any off his abilities that made him a threat to anybody willing to get in the ring with him. The buildup for this fight was what added a level of relevance to it, so the victor would gain an added bonus from the sport and fans, but if you have ever seen Martinez fight, you know that was not him in there that night.
Cotto has been reinvented by bullying the overmatched Rodriguez and kicking the walker out of old Sergio’s hands, which is why I see the same Cotto that is still on the down slope of his career.
There are talks that Cotto might be the next opponent for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, which makes perfect sense because Cotto is far past PPV status but with this surge of relevance he will be the perfect opponent to face Golden Boys cash cow because it will get him the biggest payday he can get, get him on PPV for the last time, and it will also give Canelo another name on his list of defeated foes.
I’m not saying Cotto is garbage but he is not what he’s perceived to be and the world will see when he gets in the ring with Canelo or any other good fighter. Cotto will be retired after his next fight, unless he’s believing his own hype, then he’ll fight one more time after that and will retire after that loss.
