You’ll discover today wildly different impressions around the Internets of last night’s very good and dramatic, if not great, welterweight fight between Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey. You’ll find some calling the decision win for Cotto a “gift.” You’ll find some who agreed with the wide 116-111 scorecard of one of the judges who awarded it to Cotto. You’ll find some who praised gritty showings from Cotto and Clottey, and others who thought Cotto looked terrible and Clottey gave the fight away.
That’s the boxing world for you. Why would anyone say anything balanced or considered if it’s the truth, when flamboyant overstatement is an option?
I thought it was a close fight and that it could have gone either way. I had the first round 10-8 for Cotto because of the flukey knockdown of Clottey off a jab, then scored the 3rd, 4th, 6th and final three rounds for Cotto. In retrospect, watching the fight again today segregated from my friend beer, I would have not given the 10th to Cotto, despite him landing the two showiest punches of the round, a pair of left hooks in the final seconds. Still, that’s 115-112 with beer and 114-113 without it.
I don’t see how anyone thinks Cotto could have won it running away, and if anyone thought Clottey won they’re on safe ground, but a 116-111 scorecard for Cotto in my eyes is more palatable than a wide Clottey decision. If he wins seven rounds he gets a one point decision win, if he wins eight rounds he goes up 115-112, and it seems to me you’d have to think Clottey won nine rounds before it gets into “robbery” territory. If you think Clottey won nine rounds, you’re only giving Cotto the 1st, 4th and 6th, I’d presume, and that’s a lot of close rounds and even what struck me as clear ones (like the 12th) that you swung to Clottey. That’s a stretch.
I tended toward finding more to like in both the performances and determination levels of Cotto and Clottey. There are some who thought Cotto faded, that he looked a little slow, etc. I think Cotto did fade in the 7-8-9 range, but with some good reason. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Every fighter who gets a bad cut, especially one as bad as the one Cotto suffered over his left eye is affected by it. (I thought the fight should have been stopped, but since Ivan Calderon-Rodel Mayol for Calderon’s junior flyweight championship on the undercard was stopped and ruled a draw because of a cut, maybe there was some reluctance to rob fans of a more conclusive result.) The ultra-elite ones push through when they get cut, and Cotto eventually did. But he ate a lot of right hands that he wouldn’t have otherwise, and you see if that don’t make YOU fade. And let’s face it: Cotto is flawed in that he tends to fade late, anyhow. I didn’t chalk it up to the Antonio Margarito beating still haunting him, the way some did, although I don’t suppose you can rule it out; there are just other explanations available, is all.
Clottey, who has come under fire for his diminished punch output late against Cotto, also has his own tendency to fade. But I think an even more pertinent reason for the drop is that Cotto, by dancing and moving so much over the last three rounds, really flustered Clottey. Clottey was launching periodic assaults, but Cotto was keeping distance that made it more difficult for Clottey to be effective. Cotto, in fact, did a lot of clever things to keep Clottey from getting off, like feinting and countering, and that countering — he would wait for Clottey to throw then catch Clottey with his head up, which HBO’s Emmanuel Steward pointed out really was effective — made Clottey think a little harder before going after Cotto. And, it must be said, Clottey’s style has its flaws. He comes in with that high guard for defensive purposes and that’s his starting posture for his eventual offense; infrequently does he punch on the move so as to avoid leaving himself exposed. With that style, he’s going to lose a lot of close fights. Nonetheless, I was impressed by Clottey. He clearly is one of the best five welterweights out there, and his style would give just about anyone nightmares, win or lose. He irritated me with that overacting when he fell in the 5th and got hit in the back of the head in the 12th — both incidents, to me, were utterly incidental — but he showed plenty of grit, I thought, when he rebounded after most every round he lost to win the next.
If a rematch can be had, I’d most certainly watch. I wonder if the fight is as close as it was if Cotto doesn’t injure his eye, but they did match up well to create good and dramatic action, and a more conclusive result one way or the other in a do-over would be most welcome. Top Rank’s Bob Arum, promoter of both men, apparently had to talk Clottey out of retiring on the spot when the results were read, and he promised Clottey he’d get another big fight. I’m not sure where it would come from, if not Cotto-Clottey II. Clottey’d been wanting Paul Williams, and I’d still very much like to see that fight, but would other boxing fans think much of that with Clottey coming off a loss?
Cotto has more options, rematch included. He may get Manny Pacquiao next, the biggest-money fight available to him, although if I had my druthers they’d both do something different. Cotto-Shane Mosley II is my favorite idea for Cotto. But there’s apparently also been some talk of Cotto against Andre Berto, which is a totally freaking interesting bout. Berto on his Twitter page has been tweeting away about how much he’d like Cotto next, thinking he’d be too fast for Cotto. If he takes any of those fights, we’ll know once again how grateful we ought to be to have a fighter like Cotto around: He takes on all the best foes without complaint, then fights with grand heart and in exciting fashion throughout. In that way, at least, Cotto last night was vintage Cotto.
