How Miguel Cotto Can Defeat Canelo Alvarez

By Ian “The Boxing Historian” Murphy

With Gennady “GGG” Golovkin taking out tough (but overmatched) David Lemieux in impressive fashion on October 17th, we are now left with the other half of the hypothetical unified Middleweight title bracket: Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs Miguel Cotto. Cotto holds the lineal 160lb title, but Alvarez is a decided favorite approximately two weeks before their November 24 clash. On paper, this certainly makes sense, as Alvarez is ten years younger and has only suffered one defeat in his 46 fights (a 2013 blowout at the hands of Floyd “Bicycle Man” Mayweather). In addition to his youth, Alvarez is the naturally bigger man and has a harder punch. So how can the older and smaller Cotto win this fight? The answer: utilize the techniques of past ringmasters.

Former Middleweight Champion Tony “Man of Steel” Zale was in a similar conundrum as Cotto when he was facing incumbent 160lb titlist Rocky Graziano in 1948. Zale (like Cotto) was 35, and Graziano had KO’d him to win the belt a year earlier, so this made him the underdog to reclaim his title. The matchup is also similar in that like Zale, Cotto is the more mobile fighter who relies on a big left hook and body shots to win. Also, Alvarez in a way is like Graziano in that he is a heavier puncher with a big right hand and a hard (but telegraphed) left jab. Now we can take a look in more detail at how Zale stopped his younger, stronger, and harder hitting foe way back in 1948.

Tony Zale (despite his physical disadvantages) beat the living snot out of Rocky Graziano via vicious knockout in three rounds. How did he do it? One simple (but not easy, and also quite risky!) combination confounded Graziano every time he tried to set up his big right hand. Whenever Graziano would jab, Zale would slip inside and land a hard right hand to the body and follow up with a big left hook to the head. He repeatedly did this in their third fight in 1948. Cotto can do the same, as he has a similar skill set to work with as Zale. Cotto’s biggest strengths as a fighter are his bodywork and his left hook. If he can slip inside the dangerous (but slow footed) Alvarez’s jab and make him pay to the body with hard right hands, it can set up a left hook to the head, which happens to be Cotto’s money punch.

There is risk, of course, in using this maneuver. While slipping inside the jab, a right hand counter is only a few inches away, and Alvarez has shown he can rip a man away from his senses with his big right. The key to utilizing this combo while minimizing danger is hand position, timing, and proper distance. If the body shot counter to the jab lands with enough authority, the left hook is tight and fast, and Cotto doesn’t throw his left from the hip, this move can work to devastating effect. Zale routinely showed his bravery in that fight because Graziano had a truly CRUSHING right hand. Talk about putting your head in the lion’s mouth!

While Miguel Cotto doesn’t have the same relative power that Zale had (he was a big puncher at 140 and 147, but not as a middleweight), he can use The Man of Steel’s tactic to win this fight by landing it with enough regularity to halt the stalking Alvarez in his tracks and confusing him. This also plays into Canelo’s greatest weakness as a fighter: relatively poor footwork and being somewhat robotic and plodding. The parallels between these two match ups (despite being nearly 70 years apart) are really quite interesting. I would wager Freddie Roach has Miguel as prepared as he is going to be, but wouldn’t it be something if Cotto stopped the Alvarez hype-train by bringing back the combo that cracked the Rock?

[si-contact-form form=’2′]