1) Honoring Great Warriors
This year’s Boxing Hall Of Fame class included inductees Oscar De La Hoya, Felix Trinidad, and Joe Calzaghe. That’s a combined record of 127-9 with 97KO’s folks.
2) History Is Made
Miguel Cotto became the first Puerto Rican to capture a fourth world title in as many weight classes. He did it in spectacular fashion. This win will open up a few big fights going forward for Cotto, most notably, a rumored fight with Canelo Alvarez
3) What History Should Have Taught Us, Or Me At Least
We should have seen it coming, the loss by Martinez. All the signs were there looking back into his past several fights. In his last fight against Martin Murray, Martinez struggled for most of the fight before being knocked down in the 8th and coming on late to earn a close unanimous decision, in his beloved Argentina no less. Prior to that, in the fight against Julio Chavez Jr., he dominated Chavez for 11 rounds and Chavez still had enough to floor Martinez in the 12th and almost take him out. Lastly, going three fights back, Martinez beat Matthew Macklin after Macklin’s corner stopped the fight; however, Martinez was again floored in this fight. So, going into the Cotto fight, he had been down in three straight fights, had a series of injuries and surgeries, and was starting to show his age. I will eat some crow here; I had originally thought Cotto may present problems for Martinez when the fight was announced but changed my prediction to a Martinez KO assuming he was healthy and used his 6” reach to control the fight. My premonition was far from the actual outcome; make no excuses regarding the health of Martinez, because he sure didn’t.
4) The Siberian Rocky Returns
Ruslan Provodnikov returns to the ring on Saturday night to face Chris Algieri. Ruslan flat out brings it in every fight, is a crowd pleasing brawler and is as close to a throwback fighter as there is today. On paper, this fight is a flat out mismatch. Only time will tell.
5) In the Comes As No Surprise Department….
Floyd Mayweather Jr. tops Forbes Magazine’s list of highest paid athletes. Three other pugilists made the list, Manny Pacquiao at 11, Wladmir Klitschko 25th, and Canelo Alvarez at 66.
Standing-8 