By Ted Sares: The Prediction: Paul Williams was able to beat Margo by utilizing a disciplined fight plan and by staying on the outside keeping Tony at bay with a great volume of effective jabs. Cotto, in my view, is too small to emulate this strategy.
I see Margarito eventually luring the undefeated Cotto into a slugfest, taking away his fight plan and with it, his focus. Against Sugar Shane Mosley, Cotto tired in the late rounds, but Mosley was too tired himself to capitalize. If this happens against Tony, it will prove fatal. However, I don’t see the fight going that long.
With his superior size, I see the warrior from Tijuana getting stronger with each round and, with alternating brutal shots to the body and straight rights upstairs, imposing his will on Cotto by the sixth or seventh stanza. Once this occurs, he will be in a position to stagger his smaller opponent with either a debilitating shot to the liver or straight right to the temple. He then will close matters decisively around the eight or ninth round..
The explosive Margarito has never really been hurt. Conversely, Cotto has been hurt and badly so. Margarito is capable of dishing out big time pain–and once he has an opponent on the hook, he does not allow him an escape route.
The Outcome
When the end came in the eleventh round, I had Margorito in front 97-95 despite the HBO team’s constant and wrong exclamations to the contrary. While losing the boxing match in the first five rounds to the back-peddling Cotto, “The Tijuana Tornado,” blessed with a chin of iron, continued to stalk and stun his opponent until the sixth round when he became the clear predator. Once he found Cotto’s chin with his left uppercut, the die was cast despite a decent ninth round showing by Junito. In the eleventh, Margorito hurt Cotto (whose face by now was a bloody mess), for the third time in the fight and this time and with time on his side, he did not let him off the hook He quickly closed matter decisively with a series of savage rights forcing the champion’s corner to throw in the towel.
All in all, the prediction squared extremely well with the reality of the outcome. The Mexcian warrior was simply too big and too strong, as he overwhelmed the talented Cotto to become the new champion..