Cotto May Have to Bleed to Succeed

On Saturday night, Miguel Cotto, will walk into the same Las Vegas hotel arena where, sixteen months ago, the Puerto Rican fighter suffered the worst beating of his professional boxing career.

And as sure as he knows he'll be at ringside delivering his commentary for Cotto's matchup at the MGM Grand, HBO's Jim Lampley is equally certain that Cotto is going to shed blood, yet again, opposite Manny Pacquiao.

"Of course, [Cotto's] going to bleed in this fight. Unless it's only going to go a minute. Otherwise, if we're in round three, he's cut," said Lampley, who has been ringside during the many times when Cotto has bled, profusely, from facial lacerations.

"And I would specify that the cut is going to be above his left eye, which has been damaged in the past, and it's going to come from a Pacquiao right hook. It's a punch he won't see coming because Manny is so fast and so quick inside with that punch," said Lampley, who will be on the HBO pay-per-view telecast.



"The single biggest coefficient to cuts is fast hands, and that's where Manny Pacquiao has an advantage in this fight," said Lampley. "You don't see the punch coming, that's when you get cut."

But Cotto's resiliency is something of which Lampley also has taken note, adding, "he's a rare example of a guy who can constantly make adjustments in the ring based on what's in front of him."

hat's an advantage, said Lampley, that Cotto brings with him, ostensibly from having endured so many brutal brawls with various rivals.

"No doubt, Cotto is better at handling a crisis in the ring," said Lampley. "No doubt, he thinks his way through a fight better than Pacquiao does."

Cotto (34-1, 27 knockouts) will likely rely on those survival skills against Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KOs) in defense of his WBO welterweight (147 pounds) title, which will be contested at a catch-weight of 145 pounds.

TPacquiao is attempting to win a belt in a record seventh weight class, while Cotto continues to stake his claim among Puerto Rico's premier world champions.

"Puerto Rico has a good boxing tradition with Wilfredo Gomez and Wilfred Benitez, Carlos Ortiz and Felix Trinidad. I am very happy and very proud to be a part of this Puerto Rican history," said Cotto, 29.

"First of all, I have to make good work of Manny Pacquiao (on Nov. 14) and then I have to go back to Puerto Rico. I don't know how the people are going to receive me there, but I hope it is going to be good," said Cotto.

"Some people are happy with my accomplishments in boxing; some others do not believe in me. But I have to do my work whether the people believe in me or not."

If his past is any indication, Cotto will do so or go down swinging.

"Miguel Cotto was wobbled against DeMarcus Corley (February, 2005) with a right hand over the top. Cotto was wobbled twice and knocked down once against Ricardo Torres, and I think that he was stunned a couple of times against Shane Mosley," said Lampley.

"He was cut badly against Zab Judah. He was cut badly against Joshua Clottey -- of those times in matches that he won, " said Lampley. "He was cut badly and beat up, obviously, in the Antonio Margarito fight, when he was knocked out."

It is that last one against Margarito, however, in July 2008, that has Pacquiao's trainer Freddie Roach and others questioning whether or not Cotto still is the same fighter he once was.

Cotto suffered a broken nose, dripped blood from his face, was knocked down once, took a knee once, and bled from a deep gash over his left eye. He was stopped in the 11th round.

"That was a very sad night for me. Miguel wasn't crying tears. The tears coming out of Miguel's eyes that night weren't normal. They were tears of blood. You had to see it," the champion's father, Miguel Cotto Sr., was quoted on HBO's 24/7 documentary.

"Bleeding out of his nose, bleeding out of his ears. You had to see how deep his wounds were," said Miguel Cotto Sr. "It's impossible to explain. I couldn't explain how someone with gloves could do that."

Although illegal plaster was found in Margarito's hand wrappings prior to his next fight with Shane Mosley, who knocked him out, no one is sure whether or not he was dirty when he faced Cotto.

Nevertheless, questions lingered into Cotto's last fight in June against Clottey, who not only had gone the distance with Margarito, but who vowed to manifest in Cotto what he considered to be a fragile psyche as a result of the punishment he had absorbed against Margarito.

Adding to the intrigue were the facts that cut man Joe Chavez and trainer Joe Santiago were in their first and second fights respectively in their lead roles with Cotto, having replaced dismissed Miguel Diaz and Evangelista Cotto. Santiago had backed up Evangelista Cotto for three years.

The moment of truth came in the third round, when an accidental clash of heads caused the area over Cotto's left eye to again pour blood.

Chavez worked to close the cavernous cut, being only intermittently successful. Santiago encouraged his fighter, who responded.

"No matter what the situation, no matter what the vision in my eye was, I always told the referee, 'I'm good,'" said Cotto.

"A lot of people wondered why I didn't allow the fight to be stopped," said Cotto. "But I spent more than nine weeks preparing for the Clottey fight to make a great fight and a great show for the fans all over the world."

On cue, Cotto switched to survival mode and attack mode.

"From the moment that that cut occurred, Cotto understood that the rest of the fight was going to be a game of chicken," said Lampley. "It was a matter of how much space and time could Cotto buy in the fight by simply staring Clottey down and using moments of aggression, here and there."

At one point, Cotto even slammed Clottey to the canvas in the fifth round as a seeming demonstration that he would not back down.

"It was a matter of continuing to make his point that he was dangerous, and to prevent Clottey from taking advantage of all the advantages he was enjoying in the fight," said Lampley.

"As a result, in the 10th, 11th and 12th rounds, Clottey has a dead man in front of him," said Lampley. "But he won't go after him because Cotto already has mentally stared him down. That's how he wins fights."

On Saturday night, Cotto vows yet again to rely on past experiences to bring his best into the ring against Pacquiao.

"Now, I've been in good fights with Judah, Mosley, Clottey. If people saw Miguel Cotto in all of those years, and they didn't believe in me, then what else do I have to do?," said Cotto.

"There is a lot of pride on the line for me, but for those people not to believe in me, I can't do anything else," said Cotto. "I'm here mostly to prove to myself that I'm better than Manny Pacquiao. I'm doing this for the pride of my family, my kids and my country."