Clottey/Cotto: Before and After

For New York City’s biggest boxing shows, which happen only a few times each year, weigh-ins are ceremoniously conducted at Madison Square Garden. It’s as if the pre-battle ritual must be consistent with the battle itself, a classical unity of place in a classic boxing venue. On the Garden’s fifth floor, a small area is curtained off, a stage is set, cameras are readied and a ring announcer is brought in to hype the next day’s fight. This past Friday afternoon, the fanfare seemed almost ridiculous, the ring announcer’s barking excessive like a bad cartoon; Saturday night’s fight between Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey needed no exaggerated hype. Boxing fans and boxing experts knew the upcoming clash between two of the best welterweight title holders was going to be simple in the best way. Two professional pugilists. One war.

Just before the weigh-in, Joshua Clottey unofficially stepped on the scale to check his weight. He was a quarter pound over. Clottey calmly walked to the Garden’s stairwell, ran stairs for a few quick minutes, then toweled off before he returned to the staging area. The shirtless Clottey showed no excess. I don’t think I’ve seen a leaner man. Clottey could be a poster boy for the perfect boxing physique, anatomically built for speed and strength. And Clottey knows his body. No one told him how many stairs to run. No one told him how much time he needed to sweat off the weight. He ran. He sweated. He said a curt, “Okay. Let’s go. Okay.” And his small entourage followed him out to the staging area.

When he weighed in officially, Clottey was a perfect 147 while Cotto was a pound under the limit at 146. Clottey looked the bigger man, but that signified nothing. Cotto has appeared relatively small before, most noticeably against Shane Mosley, when he looked at least a weight division slighter. The fighters put sweat pants over their briefs (not boxers), then posed in front of the scale, their final pose the obligatory stare down. They may have been talking polite during the pre-fight press conferences, but a day before the fight, each fighter has his own brand of game face on. Cotto was serious, all business, his mouth a few degrees from a frown. Clottey looked so calm he actually smiled.

Cotto had his sneakers on and appeared an inch taller than the barefoot Clottey. At one point Clottey stood on his tip-toes, a playful gesture he seemed to enjoy. At one point, standing nose to nose, eyes to eyes, Cotto blinked.

Clottey’s final words before he left the Garden were, “I know Cotto. I know him.”

Joshua Clottey is a wise student of the game and no doubt studied Miguel Cotto’s style diligently before the fight. This professional from Ghana is a man in full control, and while he is expertly trained by Kwame Asante, one gets the feeling he writes his own game plan, calls his own shots. So when Clottey says he knows Cotto, only a fool would be skeptical.

Miguel Cotto knows the Garden. He has fought here five times. He has won five times. He packs the house with adoring fans and why not? He is a superlative boxer, a textbook puncher who can press the action or counter, and he possesses that rare combination of ring intelligence and ring guts. He was the big fan favorite coming in and he was the big betting favorite at around three to one. To me, those seemed excessive odds. I saw this as a pick ‘em fight between two highly skilled warriors who have earned their boxing chops.

There were a few big questions going into this fight. First, would Cotto be able to shake off his lone defeat, a loss to Antonio Margarito that is plastered in corruption? To his credit, in his first fight back, Cotto easily defeated Michael Jennings, and he did so in the Garden, but facing Clottey was an entirely different enterprise. I was anxious to see the early rounds so I could gauge if this was the Cotto of old, the undefeated, relentless fighter who once reigned as the welterweights’ true king, or if he had changed somehow, if his luster and confidence had faded. The only change I saw before the fight were the new tattoos on Miguel Cotto’s leg, a series of lightning bolts streaking down his thigh. Maybe I hadn’t noticed them before, but if these were new, it might be an indication that his mind was not all on his work. New trainer. New tattoos. Newly defeated. Perhaps the fresh ink was Cotto’s way to defy doubt. If he could take the needle, he could take the fist. He knew Clottey would make this a war. As for Clottey, there were questions about his status and stamina. I was anxious to see if he could start busy and stay busy, if he could fight through an injury if he were injured, and if he could show the world, against an elite opponent, that he belonged on boxing’s biggest stage.

If you’re reading this, you’ve seen the fight and you’ve read about the fight, so there’s no need for a round-by-round, blow-by blow. It was indeed a war. It was bloody and messy and ugly and beautiful. Cotto owns Madison Square Garden and the way I heard the fight from the Garden’s rafters, the predominantly Puerto Rican crowd had their man winning. But the entire section of Ghanians behind me, chanting for most of the fight, saw their man as the victor. The opinions in the press and on the internet are equally polar. And the CompuBox punchstats, which I rarely use as an indicator of what really happened in a fight, tell an interesting story. Clottey connected with more total punches and had a higher connect percentage. He landed one less jab than Cotto and had a higher connect percentage. And he threw more power punches, connected with more power punches and had a higher connect percentage. For one judge to score the fight 116-111 suggests real bias. Perhaps another bias was Arthur Mercante Jr.’s job as the referee. These two fighters are not of the punch-and-clinch variety, but they sometimes resort to tactics outside the rules. Mercante chose to allow the rough-housing without so much as a warning. Tonight, it was Cotto employing the less-than-legal moves. The clash of heads that opened Cotto’s brow in Round 3 was accidental. But Cotto’s takedown of Clottey in the 5th was not. Nor was the rabbit punch in Round 12. To both fighters’ credit, no animus remained after these infractions, and, stoically, the way professionals fight, they finished their jobs.

Kudos to Cotto for fighting with a gaping wound. That’s what’s expected from warriors. Kudos to him for staying up through all twelve rounds when it looked, at many times, that he was being broken down in the same way Margarito broke him down. Kudos to Clottey for slowing Cotto through the fight’s second half with only gloves on his fists. Kudos to Clottey for being the aggressor, pushing the action, consistently being the ring general. Perhaps he could have pushed harder to silence the pro-Cotto crowd and to ensure the closer rounds were his. Perhaps he should have swung for a knockout when Cotto was clearly vulnerable, physically and mentally. But hindsight is easy. At the end of the fight, side by side, Cotto looked like he’d been in a fight while Clottey looked like he’d just finished one of his famous runs through New York City’s streets.

The post-fight press conference was held where the weigh-in was held. Same curtained-off section of the Garden’s fifth floor. Same cameras. Same cast of reporters. Absent, thankfully, was the ring announcer—hype wasn’t needed before the fight and it certainly wasn’t needed after.

Bob Arum spoke first and was brutally honest in answering questions about the fight. About a possible rematch, he said, “It was a great fight. And under ordinary circumstances Clottey deserves one. But we have economics. And Pacquaio against Cotto is out there. I remember feeling similarly when Mosley lost to Cotto. Everyone knew Mosley was a great fighter. They didn’t know it about Joshua Clottey. Now they know.” High and worthy praise from a promoter who has seen it all in boxing. One key question had been answered. Clottey, as Arum correctly pointed out, is clearly an elite fighter, one of the two or three best welterweights in the world.

Cotto came to the dais next. He took five minutes of questions before he had to leave to get his wound sewn up. “I’m going to retire with a huge cut on my eye,” he joked. “But I’m here.” For a non-native speaker, Cotto spoke eloquently and graciously. On Clottey’s performance: “He hurt me. Everybody saw my face.”

Clottey was equally gracious when he spoke about Cotto and called him a strong man. But he was visibly upset with the decision. “I think I won the fight, but I didn’t get the decision. The best thing that will make me happy is to get a rematch. I’m very, very upset. I want Bob Arum to give me a rematch and I want you people to talk to him and get me a rematch. To be frank with you, he never hurt me. No, no, no, no.” This is not a case of protesting too much. Looking at Clottey, hearing his confident assessment of himself, and watching him fight, Clottey looked ready to go another twelve rounds. And from the reaction of the press in attendance, Clottey deserves a rematch. While Cotto owned the Garden, Clottey seemed to own the admiration of the press. It was Clottey who received the most applause. It was Clottey who inspired the most reaction, mostly outrage at the decision. It was Clottey who was surrounded by writers turned well-wishers when the press conference was done.

Cotto will go on to mega-money fights, and deservedly so. The welterweight world is his oyster. He can fight Pacquiao. He can fight Mayweather if Mayweather dares. He can fight Margarito when the Mexican fighter’s ban is lifted. Already a multi-millionaire, Cotto has more fame and fortune in his future. For Clottey, there are no more questions about his pedigree. Clearly he is an exceptional welterweight. Clearly he deserves to fight on boxing’s biggest stages against its biggest names. But Joshua Clottey has never had it easy. Fighters have avoided him throughout his career. I fear, without a title, fighters will be able to continue avoiding him. Names were thrown out. Andre Berto, for one. That fight will never happen. Berto isn’t in the same league and the kid gloves that handle him won’t want to touch the dangerous Clottey. Shane Mosley is another name. It’s a good fight, but not a mega-money fight. A rematch with Cotto seems unlikely for now. As does a rematch with Margarito, which Clottey deserves. The road will be rough for Joshua Clottey. But if the boxing powers paid attention tonight—paid attention to Clottey’s performance in the ring, to the press’s reaction, to his dominant punch stats and clear ring generalship—they will make sure that Clottey gets his due.

Before and after. And an exciting, back-and-forth battle in between. Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey fought valiantly. Their war, waged in Madison Square Garden, answered some important questions about both men. Let’s hope boxing does the right thing now and rewards both men, and not just one, with the proper spoils.