Cotto vs. Canelo: How Each Fighter Plans to Win

It may not be the middleweight fight the world has been waiting for—considering that it’ll be contested five pounds below the traditional weight class limit—but it’s still a pretty darn good one.

In fact, despite their lack of true 160-pound pedigree, both 34-year-old Miguel Cotto (he’ll be 35 on fight night) and 25-year-old Canelo Alvarez have the sort of pound-for-pound street cred that puts their Nov. 21 get-together at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on the sport’s short list of must-see events.

After all, Cotto has been a pro for 14 years and is the only Puerto Rican-born fighter to claim world championship belts in four weight classes, ranging from 140 pounds to 160.

Meanwhile, Alvarez has been paid to fight for a full decade, was the top man for a time at 154 pounds and has lost just one of 47 outings—by decision against Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Boxrec.com lists Alvarez fourth on its most recent pound-for-pound list, while Cotto is seventh.

“Cotto and I will write our own story and continue the legacy of great fights between Mexicans and Puerto Ricans,” Alvarez told Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times. “I’m embracing this rivalry.”

The long-anticipated agreement was reached when the two promoters—Golden Boy Promotions for Alvarez and Roc Nation Sports for Cotto—decided not to include a clause for a rematch in the fight contract. The parties have a verbal agreement for a rematch if the original lives up to expected billing.

And now that a deal is done, the discussion can at last turn from supposition to strategy. 

Miguel Cotto: What will it take?

Mary Altaffer/Associated Press

The Puerto Rican’s chances for success in November revolve around which incarnation arrives.

Had the matchup with Alvarez been inked two years ago, prior to Cotto’s alignment with Freddie Roach—the man who had trained Manny Pacquiao to beat him to a pulp in 2009—it may have been viewed as little more than a chance for the young Mexican to add a faded former star to his victim’s list.

That version of Cotto had dropped consecutive fights to Mayweather and Austin Trout at 154 pounds while looking incrementally older, slower and completely unlikely to return to significant world standing.

But as it turned out, perhaps all he needed was the right teammate.  

“A lot of people said Michael Jordan would not have been Michael Jordan without Scottie Pippen,” Cotto told a media gathering in June 2014, three days before shocking Sergio Martinez to win the WBC middleweight title belt that he’ll risk against Alvarez. “I think I found my Pippen in Freddie Roach.”

The Martinez win was the second of three fights for the Cotto-Roach duo, each of which has ended with a foe unable and/or unwilling to continue. The defeats of Delvin Rodriguez (TKO 3), Martinez (TKO 10) and Daniel Geale (TKO 4) not only rejuvenated a previous brand but also reintroduced the myriad means of torture a prime version of the converted southpaw is able to inflict with his well-schooled left hand.

A quintessential pocket fighter, Cotto throws straight punches from close range, doubles up on a jab that could just as easily be labeled a straight left and takes advantage of a foe’s upstairs wariness to create space for blistering body shots. The commitment to body work will be mandatory against a foe as young, willing and sturdy as Alvarez, but just as important for Cotto’s own survival will be the sorts of crafty skills he’d shown gradually less of in each fight before joining forces with the Wizard of Wild Card.

Though the younger man is often billed as a pressure fighter, he’s been troubled in the past by opponents unwilling to simply stand in front of him until they’re battered. Trout gave Canelo trouble before ultimately succumbing by narrow unanimous decision. Mayweather flustered him by using angles and footwork to offset momentum, and Erislandy Lara turned their match into a full-on track meet.

Cotto’s moves won’t remind anyone of Hector Camacho, but he can be an effective matador in November by changing direction as Alvarez prepares to punch and taking advantage of subsequent lapses in the Mexican’s momentum. As a result, he’s able to forgo traditional positions to land shots from unexpected directions—a tactic that, if things go well, will lead to full control in the late going.

Canelo Alvarez: What will it take?

John Locher/Associated Press

It seems a touch counterintuitive.

Cotto is the lineal middleweight champ. Alvarez has never been heavier for a weigh-in than 155 pounds. But when the third Saturday in November arrives, it’s the younger man who’ll be the bigger man.

In fact, not only is the 5’9” Alvarez two inches taller than Cotto, but he’ll also possess a three-inch reach advantage when they get together. And though he, like Cotto, began his pro career as a junior welterweight, he was only 15 at the time, and his weight climb has been the product of a decade of growth.

Come the fall, he’s likely to reach the ring nearer the light heavyweight limit than middleweight.

In addition to being the bigger man, he’s also the busier, fresher and more competitively sharp man.

While Cotto has fought three times and 17 rounds since 2012, Alvarez has taken part in five fights and 49 rounds against markedly better competition than Rodriguez, Geale and a gimpy Martinez. Before Cotto’s stretch of part-time participation, though, he was engaged in a series of brutal slugfests that could actually offset his experience edge entirely.

Upon entering the ring with a mid-30s foe, Alvarez must seize the initiative and either trap his man against the ropes or bait Cotto into a mid-ring slugfest where his subtleties are less evident. The Puerto Rican has thrived against recent foes unable to force him out of his comfort zone, but the Alvarez who was unable to force Mayweather into a three-minutes-of-every-round workload should be more successful against a foe whose career tendency has been to respond to fire with fire rather than finesse.

Toward that end, Alvarez’s best strategy is to overwhelm.