Bleacher Report - Articles by pablo liesenberg

Cotto vs Clottey Preview: Something to Prove

pablo liesenberg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:00:26 -0400

One has to love a fight like this, surrounded by as much speculation and questions. As in...

- Did Cotto truly just lose to Margarito because illegal wraps were used?

- Did Clottey breakthrough win against Judah come against a fighter that was dented anyhow?

Big questions. And the interesting thing is that this fight will provide some answers as to their true standing in the division.

What are the first things that come to the mind to the discerning boxing fan when these guys' names come up?

First (courtesy of his last win over a big name opponent), Clottey: To me, "resilient" and "strong" are the two top adjectives that come to mind.

Resilient because it is obvious he can walk through a heavy shelling to land his own punches, and strong because—while not being explosive with single punches—it is obvious he is a very solid physical presence in this division, not easily hurt, and strong and unflinching while pursuing his own attack.

His attack is predictable and mechanical, but given his resilience it seems to tell later on in fights.

The we have Cotto. How well do we really know him? These days people make it sound like he looked unbeatable and then got cheated by a Margarito that packed solid kryptonite in his gloves.

But honestly the truth is that Cotto had shown vulnerability earlier on, with flaws in his defense and lack of one punch knock out power when he upped the level of opponent. He had shown chinks in his armor against lesser opposition.

And to his credit he tried to rediscover forgotten skills in his arsenal based on his vulnerability as he upped his level of opponents: he started to become more of a stylist and rediscover the speed he once had as an amateur.

Their records (even with Margarito included) seem quite similar. They performed similarly against their key common opponents, especially Judah. But the latter may hold a key to this fight: first of all, Judah may have been more convinced of his stardom going into the Cotto fight, and less so going into the Clottey fight.

In fact, he might have left what he still had (provided he ever had all that much as a pro, I regard Judah as a wasted talent) against Cotto, and may have accepted the name opponent role during the Clottey fight.

In a nutshell: Clottey is strong, but mechanical and slow. Cotto has the better speed, perhaps more one punch power, but seems more likely to be hurt. These two will collide trying to make their point to welterweight people championship, Mosley against cheating Margarito be damned! And they are likely to collide hard and entertainingly.

None of them likes a very fast paced fight, so they are likely to take it into the second half. And... what will make the difference there... Clottey's toughness and resiliency, or Cotto's speed?

I'd love to leave it at this, but I know you guys are going to say I chickened out of a prediction. And while I know that the expectation is for Cotto to vindicate his supposedly unfair loss to Margarito, and while I like Cotto a lot, I think this fight may come as too early a test against Cotto.

I think Clottey is hard as nails. I think after they measure each other early on Cotto will get stung once or twice, try to dance, and yet not be quite able to keep up the activity level required to outpoint Clottey.

I predict a decision for Clottey, and a very fun night for the Ghana fans—wish I could join them partying (and they will party no matter what, because Clottey, win or lose, will put on a great show).

Early Analysis: Pacquiao Against Mayweather?

pablo liesenberg — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 10:15:18 -0500

It was predictable. In the wake of the Pacquiao vs De La Hoya fight, and as Pacquiao has clearly knocked De la Hoya off his PPV visibility title with a conclusive victory, someone who supposedly had “nothing left to prove” now has. For the right price tag, of course.

Floyd Mayweather Junior, oh how we have missed you, so much that I have even forgotten your nickname. Oh. It just came back, it is “Money”. Doesn't that sound oh-so-pre-bubble and so out of touch with the new economic reality? But I am going on tangents.

The key question here is to provide some analysis on what might happen if Mayweather and Pacquiao (I arrange their names alphabetically, not by merit in the ring) meet. One safe prediction: promotional success.

Come on, this would be the first time in a while that the sports' superstars meet in their prime age at the cusp of their accomplishments and accompanying helpings of hype. Both wildly accomplished. Both with passionate fans behind them that will swear their idols are unbeatable and the greatest the sport has ever produced. Fight hype at its best.

Both fighters are stellar, but both also bring very contrasting styles to the ring.

Let us start with Floyd Mayweather Junior: a gifted stylist, but one that has proven that there is a lot of toughness behind the stylish boxing stanza. A lot of ink and commentary has been Mayweather's speed—I think the whole speed argument has become a lazy analysts' tool. Speed advantages are only visible against inferior athletes.

What fighters like Mayweather really have is excellent intuition to time their opponent—to figure out how they fight, how they set up punches, and how to take advantage of it. It is not a matter of a faster nerve connection or super-natural synapses between nerve cells, it is about having a fighter's eye and brain and figuring out what the opponent is doing, and having the athleticism to execute on it.

And Mayweather has excellent ring generalship. He masters the art of just outdoing his opponent, of figuring him out and exploiting his weaknesses. He is not that much faster, really—in fact, he got outlanded and countered by Judah early in their fight, but that fact is a blueprint in what Mayweather does at his best: study and learn his opponent, then time and gradually beat him to the punch, all the while protecting himself.

Mayweather is a very efficient fighter, kind of like Toney and Hopkins, but without ever having to disrupt opponents with tricks.

Then, we have Pacquiao. It is easy to declare him unbeatable after his one-sided demolition of De La Hoya. So I will not. I will blend the Pacquiao that had two close, tough fights with Marquez with the Pacquiao that dominated De La Hoya. The De La Hoya fight confirmed what I wrote in my analysis—that Pacquiao has very underrated boxing skills. Well, no more - now the world truly knows Pacquiao is more than just berserk attack.

Yes, De La Hoya was woefully slow, but Pacquiao's ring generalship and his movement was a boxing skills showcase, and he showed great and very effective aggression combined with defensive elusiveness. Pacquiao is very aggressive, but he is also very calculated in his aggression, and can resort to a more gradual destruction of his opponent by exploiting the combination of skills and power.

So the matchup against Mayweather and Pacquiao is a dream come true because finally we shall see someone as skilled as Pacquiao putting pressure on Mayweather. The key to this fight is how Mayweather will respond—will he draw into levels of brilliance previously unwitnessed, or will he be happy to not get hurt, go into a mostly defensive shell, and claim he won because he didn't get knocked out afterwards?

Will Pacquiao's huge success finally draw complacency and soften a warrior who has always been able to turn it up another notch when he had something new to prove?

Size will not be a factor in this fight—these are both fighters that are always superbly conditioned and have come up the weights, and have always looked great at whatever weight. These are both fighters who have power—admittedly it seems Pacquiao more so—but are not crushing one-punch knockout artists anymore.

And we have Mayweather, who fights very well off his back-foot while countering opponents' aggression, and Pacquiao, who -despite his versatility- is at his most comfortable when he can step in and unleash a fierce exchange.

These are both fighters who could prove to be each others' kryptonite: Mayweather may be the one fighter with the science and sense of timing to disrupt Pacquiao as he steps in (he can take a look at the Marquez fight to see how it is done, too), and Pacquiao may be the one fighter who could push Mayweather into an overly defensive shell for 12 rounds and look like he outclassed him.

Time to put my chips on the table, you say? OK. I will go with Pacquiao. But he better train for this one even harder than he did for the De La Hoya fight, because it will pose a totally new challenge. But I think Pacquiao has the tools to offensively overwhelm Mayweather and steal enough rounds of the latter. I say Pacquiao wins a decision.

And by then, Pacquiao will join my boxing shrine along with guys like Hagler, Duran, Hearns and Chavez—guys who never shirked a challenge, and who provided awesome entertainment. I have the utmost respect for Mayweather, and I'd pick him against almost anyone else up to 160—but Mayweather's science may not be able to overcome Pacquiao's pressure, gift and desire.

De La Hoya Against Pacquiao Pre-Fight Analysis

pablo liesenberg — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:50:14 -0500

In just a few days, on December 6, the wait for De La Hoya and Pacquiao to meet in the reality of the ring (as opposed to a reality TV prequel of—paradoxically—occasional questionable authenticity) will be mercifully over, and boxing fans (or those whose interest was piqued by the prequel, and it would indeed be interesting to know how many were persuaded to watch the fight because of the HBO miniseries) will find out what this fight was.

Will it be a mismatch between a fierce, eager and yet predictably weaker and much smaller fighter whose ambition and perhaps greed took him one step too far? Or will it be an exciting and competitive fight between fighters with near perfect ring credentials?

Certainly, a lot has been written about De La Hoya's size advantage. After all, De La Hoya has been campaigning north of 150lbs for many years now, while Pacquiao had never been above 130lbs until this year. In fact, De la Hoya's weight in his professional debut back in 1992 (time flies!) was higher than Pacquiao's had ever been until June this year.

And of course De La Hoya also enjoys very considerable height and reach advantages. And if that weren't enough, De La Hoya—when focused on it-—has a jab that should be highlighted in instructional boxing videos, fast and powerful, able to keep the opponent at a distance by itself.

To top it off, De La Hoya also has the mid-distance power and accuracy to make smaller opponents trying to close the gap desist quickly, or face the definite possibility of sudden stoppage.

It has been a while since we have seen De La Hoya enjoy such a natural size advantage, but remember the Chavez fight and just how outgunned and mismatched the all-time-great (and at the time admittedly very faded) Chavez looked.

So does this mean that Pacquiao is just there for a payday? I do not think so. While I do indeed think that De La Hoya's size, reach and style pose a huge obstacle for Pacquiao, I think boxing has also often enough shown us that other extreme scenarios can suddenly materialize when someone as determined, fierce and skilled as Pacquiao is part of the equation in the ring.

Think about it: it is not inconceivable that De la Hoya has not taken the challenge ahead of him as seriously as he would have with a bigger opponent. And that he may have underestimated the strain that losing all that weight could place on his 35 year old body after a very long ring career.

It could be that after losing all that weight he finds himself without the strength advantage he was counting on, with diminished power, and also negatively impacted stamina. Which is a scary prospect when facing an opponent as relentless and determined as Pacquiao is. And I would contend that Pacquiao does possess underrated boxing skills he can fall back on.

So the fight between these boxing superstars is indeed intriguing. The big question is how much higher Pacquiao, who has seemed to enjoy such a big advantage at lower weights, can rise; and how much of De La Hoya's size and strength advantage could be impacted by fighting at this artificially low weight for him.

Let us not forget what happened to Roy Jones Jr when he came back down to the 175lbs division after briefly (and triumphantly) campaigning at heavyweight.

I admit that if you were to ask me for a prediction I would probably go with De La Hoya because his size advantage gives him more tactical options. Pacquiao's margin for error will be narrow and unforgiving. But Pacquiao is a brilliant fighter, and it is not impossible for him to put a perfect fight together.

So, even in the middle of this recession, I will be spending my cash on this PPV. Because I am genuinely curious about the scenario that might unfold when these two great fighters -who have never failed to entertain the crowd- finally fight this Saturday.