by Natasa Shepherd

Created on: July 23, 2009

It's final! Miguel Cotto is now set to take on one of the greatest boxers of our time Manny Pacquiao in what should be one of the most exciting fights we'll see in a long time. Judging purely on both of these mens last fights, there is no doubt who is the favorite to win this fight. Cotto's last fight was against the very tough customer but rather unknown Joshua Clottey, the fight couldn't have been any closer and it could have really gone to either man, I had Clottey winning the fight myself and believe if the fight was anywhere outside of the America's Clottey would have won, but Cotto would be called the winner in a very unimpressive fight from the Puerto Rican champ. Where Cotto looked unimpressive, Pacquiao couldn't have looked better, knocking out one of the toughest fighters around in just 2 rounds, Ricky Hatton.

You could argue to say that Cotto is somewhat of a Mexican style of boxer. He likes to push forward and land them power shots, but where you average Mexican style fight is wild with their punches and keeps a fast tempo, Cotto is much slower and more methodical in his approach to boxing. He likes to move forward, covering up and land them big body shots and lead off with his left hook. Now this plays straight into the hands of Manny, who wasn't nicknamed "The Mexicutioner" for no reason. He made a habit of beating the best Mexican boxers around, his style would always trump theirs. All you have to do is look at what Manny did to Hatton to see how devasting he really is against fighters who like to push the pace and constantly move forward. I truly believe that Cotto just doesn't have the full set of skills to beat Pacquiao. Cotto has done well so far to beat all the men he has beaten, but he is moving up to the top tier of fighters now and there is a good chance he will face exactly what Ricky Hatton faced. Cotto is arguably a one dimensional fighter, you always know what he's going to do, he won't ever do something that you won't see coming, that's where he will lose. Pacquiao is just on another level when it comes to boxing, he can stick and move, he can counter and he can most certainly slug it out, you never know what your going to get with him.

Cotto hasn't looked the same since his to lose to Antonio Margarito. Even though it has come out that Margarito is a cheater and could have possibly cheated in his win over Cotto, it still hasn't changed how Cotto has fought. While he is no where near as bad as Jeff Lacy was after his fight with Calzaghe, you can see it has mentally affected him and this could play a huge role in his fight with Pacquiao. I can see this fight going one of two ways. Pacquiao will pepper Cotto with flurries from the outside and move inside for bigger punches all night as Cotto slowly but surely turns into a turtle and losses on points or he will do that but Cotto instead will become aggressive, overly aggressive and start to miss his punches, at which point Pacquiao will start to counter and eventually knock Cotto out.

Either way its not going to be a good night for Cotto in my eyes.

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