After the 1st round of the fight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto here is what I was thinking:

“Cotto looks pretty fast, he is popping that jab he might give Manny some problems.”

DOWNLOAD ENTIRE FIGHT HERE

By the end of Round 2 the Pacman proved how foolish I was for doubting him for even one round. There are so many superlatives for Manny in this fight I could go on for days, but here are the two things that stood out.

1- The Power

Antonio Margarito in all likelihood had loaded gloves when he fought Miguel Cotto and he never put him down with one punch. Manny put Cotto on the floor twice with one punch knockdowns. The 1st one was a flash knockdown, but the 2nd one would have ended the fight if he had more time to finish him off. I am amazed how Manny has been able to keep his power while going up in weight. Cotto looked much bigger than him, but Manny had the stronger more explosive punch.

2- The Chin

This wasn’t Oscar De La Hoya who barely got any punches off or Ricky Hatton who was totally outclassed. This was a true welterweight who was landing punches on Manny and they seem to have zero effect. Cotto is considered a strong puncher and he landed plenty of solid shots on Manny before he started running (more on that later), but not one punch seem to hurt Manny. That had to be disheartening for Cotto that the smaller man took his punches, better than he was taking Manny’s punches.

As for Cotto this is hard for me to say because he seems like a really nice guy and he caught a raw deal when Margarito loaded those gloves, but he embarrassed himself by running for the last six rounds of the fight. I understand why he did because if he kept exchanging with Manny the fight would have been over a lot sooner, but the visual of him in full retreat to a fighter who had to weigh 10-15 pounds less than him when they stepped in the ring will haunt him for a long time.

A lot of people thought he would never be the same fighter after the beating he took from Margarito and it is hard to argue with that now. He wanted to quit in the 11th round, but was talked out of it. The fight should have been stopped much earlier than 12th round, because it was obvious Cotto had no more fight in him.

Cotto is a good fighter just not a great one and is destine to be a second tier fighter for the rest of his career.

Of course everyone wants to see Pacquiao vs. Mayweather including yours truly. It shouldn’t be that hard, the negotiations should go like this:

60/40

Winner gets 60 and Loser gets 40.

Negotiations over.

I hope Boxing politics doesn’t get in the way the fight that the World wants to see, but of course it will never be that easy especially with Floyd’s and Bob Arum’s huge ego involved.

But get it done cause I want to go back to Vegas *wink*.

*If Youtube shuts down the video up top you can watch the knockdowns on the backup video below*