Mayweather vs Cotto: Money's High Ring IQ Sets Him Apart from Rest of the Field

This past Saturday night at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Miguel Cotto became the latest fighter to be outsmarted by Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Cotto is not the first, and he won’t be the last fighter to fall victim to Floyd’s ring genius.

The one thing Mayweather does better than any other fighter in the world is adjust mid-fight. When fighters have experienced early success against Mayweather, he has always been able to make an adjustment.

Shane Mosley was busy, and he was throwing an effective straight right hand in his meeting with Mayweather in May 2010. One of those punches actually dazed Mayweather, forcing him to grab and hold to clear the cobwebs.

From that point on Mayweather made the proper defensive adjustments, and the weapon was vanquished.

Mayweather had issues with Cotto’s jab on Saturday night, especially in Round 6. This punch was the only chance Cotto had to win the fight; it seemed Mayweather knew that too.

He lured Cotto to the ropes, knowing he wanted to make it a brawl. Doing that allowed Mayweather to use the ropes for leverage and it brought the shoulder-roll into play.

This is Mayweather’s signature defensive posture, and he implements it better than any fighter I’ve ever seen.

Though this is where Cotto had some of his most crowd-pleasing moments, he simply didn’t land enough in these sequences. On the flip side, it allowed Floyd to counter with hard right hands and accurate hooker-cuts (hybrid hook and uppercut).

The result of this strategy and the subsequent exchanges gave Mayweather a big advantage in power punches.

He bested Cotto 128-75 in this department. He put the cherry on the sundae by rocking Junito in the final round. It was a dangerous, but fantastic game plan.

Mayweather carries this mental advantage over almost every opponent he faces, and it’s the reason he is 43-0. Sure, he has blazing hand speed and he’s an accurate puncher, but there are other fighters with those qualities.

None of them combine the physical with the mental like Floyd; thus he is the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world.

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