By Pancho Dempsey
Filipinos love the three B’s; Basketball, Billiards and Boxing. Now that Manny Pacquiao became famous through the sport of boxing the Filipinos focus is turning more towards boxing. They begun to follow the sport of boxing even more now than before. Especially with this upcoming Miguel Cotto vs. Yuri Foreman fight since it will be televised on ABS-CBN in the Philippines. They are more familiar with skillful boxers such as; Floyd Mayweather Jr., Amir Khan, Shane Mosley, Juan Manuel Marquez, Timothy Bradley, Andre Berto and Devon Alexander.
In my honest analysis, permit me to state, that Jewish champion Yuri Foreman will win by decision and retain his WBA belt based on his boxing skills. I can see that he is an intelligent boxer with good movement, most of all he is very focused while in the ring and always follows his game plan, which is a very important factor in winning. Foreman doesn’t have the punching power of Cotto who is a strong welterweight moving up to junior middleweight division but I can foresee that Foreman is capable of avoiding those powerful punches from Cotto by using his height and reach advantage. If Miguel Cotto can see the skill of Foreman during the fight he will be demoralized. Once a boxer is demoralized in the ring he will lose his focus and concentration resulting to a situation where he will not be able to apply strategy. Remember Foreman is the hungrier fighter this is his first time in front of a big audience and he has never been defeated.
In the case of Miguel Cotto, who is known for his powerful body punching which he was not able to apply on Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao causing his demoralization and ultimately leading to his losses. This time in order to win he must make use of his power that he has acquired and developed during his boxing career. Cotto must put in mind that because he was not able to apply this technique to Antonio Margarito or Manny Pacquiao he must now concentrate on how he will be able to make use of his powerful body punching against Yuri Foreman. Also, I noticed that his defense is becoming weak because of the way he positions his hands leaving himself open to both head and body punches. The elbows are too far apart and high no protection to his body and face leaving him vulnerable to uppercuts, straights and body punches. He must utilize a closed guard like Joshua Clottey and Winky Wright to avoid the straight punch of Yuri Foreman. If he cannot avoid the straight punches of Foreman it is a sure loss, he can even be stopped on cuts if not knocked down. Cotto has a tendency to cut early in fights and if he cannot avoid those punches from Foreman he will get cut no matter how hard Foreman hits him. In order to counter this, Cotto must cut off the ring and punch first to score on the mobile Yuri Foreman.
My Prediction: Yuri Foreman by 12 round unanimous decision
That is my prediction and analysis for the HBO boxing Yuri Foreman vs Miguel Cotto fight on June 5 at Yankee Stadium.
Send your Articles, Opinions, Recipes, Event Announcements, Press Releases to Bayanihantayo.com and have it viewed by millions!
Visit the Bayanihan Tayo FORUMS it’s FREE!