by Alan J Kindred: Miguel Cotto wins a title in his third weight class tonight against against the former champion Yuri Foreman. It was a much more exciting fight than anticipated as there many heated exchanges throughout. Many experts thought the fight would lead to a boring decision win for Yuri Foreman.
Emmanuel Steward has done a great job bringing the basics back to Cotto and implementing the unexpected game plan of out jabbing the jabber.. Foreman’s quick movement was nullified by Cotto’s agility to turn with him. While Foreman was quicker of feet he wasn’t able to gain angles like he thought he would. Cotto turned with him and timed the jab much better and fought a very disciplined fight.
Sadly this fight was lessened by Foreman’s previous knee injury. To Cotto’s credit he was out-boxing the boxer before this occurred. To Foreman’s credit he stood strong like a champion in the adversity of his terrible injury. For a few rounds Foreman tried to remain fighting and like a true warrior he went out on his shield to the vaunted Cotto left hook to the liver.
Both men’s stock will rise as a result of this battle. Cotto wins a title in his third weight class and fourth title over all nearly assuring him a place in the hall of fame regardless of his future results. Some might like a guy like Cotto to go off into the sunset and retire having faced the stiffest competition in the sport over the last five years but he himself
says it is more big names in the future for him.
As for Foreman, with knee surgery this man may not of seen his last big time fight. He has a lot of skills and I believe he was very surprised that a known puncher was trained by Emmanuel Steward to outbox him with the jab and timing. I was way more impressed by this fight and both men than I thought I would be tonight. Both warriors deserve a round of applause by the boxing community.