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Carrie Stroup here and we got quite an active betting card for Saturday that includes the Miguel Cotto vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr fight odds. These were available at Sportsbook, which was also offering round betting and lines on the result (i.e. Knock Out, etc..).
Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO) vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. (42-0, 26 KO)
Sportsbook.com Line: Mayweather -800/Cotto+500
Floyd Mayweather Jr. puts his perfect record on the line again when he and Miguel Cotto get together for the WBA Super World light middleweight title bout on Saturday.
There’s plenty of disappointment over the fact that Mayweather and Manny Pacquaio still haven’t hammered things out for a much-anticipated fight. But Cotto (37-2, 30 KO) will be a tough test. The 31-year-old has lost just two fights (both by knockout), one to Pacquiao when he was forced to fight at 145 pounds. And one to Antonio Margarito when it seemed Margarito was plastering his gloves (he was caught in the next bout, and Cotto knocked Margarito out in 10 in November’s rematch). Cotto’s going to be fighting at a comfortable weight, and physically he can hang with Mayweather. But Cotto will have a mental hurdle to clear—Pacquiao and Margarito each frustrated him in those losses, and Mayweather (42-0, 26 KO) is the best when it comes to mental warfare.
Mayweather is coming off September’s absolute destruction of Victor Ortiz, another talented fighter who couldn’t handle the mental aspects of a Mayweather bout. He may have been thrown off his routine a little bit when he had to answer questions for the Nevada Boxing Commission stemming from a domestic violence guilty plea. To this point, no one has been able to exploit a Mayweather weakness in the ring. Though his two fights previous to Ortiz—Shane Mosley in May 2010 and Juan Manuel Marquez in September ’09—both lasted 12 rounds with Mayweather winning unanimous decisions.
Since the Margarito loss in July 2008, Cotto hasn’t had any particularly impressive wins. He won a split decision over Joshua Clottey in June 2009, and got his revenge on Margarito last November. Other than that, he’s knocked out Michael Jennings, Yuri Foreman and Ricardo Mayorga. There was also the loss to Pacquiao, in which Cotto was beaten into submission and badly bloodied before the fight was stopped in the 12th. Bleeding has been an issue for Cotto in the past, and is a definite concern against Mayweather and his ability to land punches.
- Carrie Stroup, Gambling911.com Senior Reporter
