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[daprofessor]

self managed fighters such as bhop, roy jones and floyd mayweather do not rely on matchmakers and promoters (like pac and toprank) to pick their opposition because they are special talents that are capable of doing that on their own. it's a huge part of their success.

roy had his deal with hbo....and as a result we got to see him dominate over matched opposition for years. guys i never heard of like glenn kelly or the police officer that sold the bottom of his shoes for advertisement...and guys way past their primes like pazienza who had absolutely no business at super middle. he did some amazing things against those no-hopers. then he went up in weight and fought ruiz. prior to that though...he was avoiding his mandatory opponent, antonio tarver. everyone thought tarver would be killed by roy, myself included. tarver had to fight to be the mandatory twice. he knew something we didn't. roy didn't want any part of tarver. tarver called him out at the press conference for jones/ruiz and the world was shocked. the first fight happened and roy squeaked out victory and had a ton of excuses for winning. then the rematch happened. we all remember that.

bhop has been thee master at picking his opposition. he prides himself for "doing it his way" for all of these years. he's beat some great opposition along the way too! his best wins came against guys no one thought he could beat....tarver, pavlik and more recently....pascal. the potential opponent that no one paid attention to was dawson. a lot of fans feel bhop was avoiding dawson....but many more felt it was the right thing to do because after all...he wasn't a draw and dawson lost to pascal. and he looked like crap in his fight prior to hopkins. no way dawson belongs in the ring with bhop. then came the fight at the staples center where i believed bhop faked injury to get out of an inevitable ass whoopin. that theory was proven right imo after this past weekend when bad chad put it on bhop for several rounds in a fight that was more one sided than all of his losses combined.

notice the pattern? fighter picks opponents...he shines. forced to fight an opponent...no so much.

which brings me to floyd mayweather. arguably the most brilliant fighter of his time. he was voted fighter of the year in '98 and then again in '08. that alone is a huge accomplishment. but let's be honest....since his move up from 135....he has been picking and choosing his opposition in the same fashion as rjj and bhop and he's been shining. now....he's been forced to settle for miguel cotto because he has run out of options. on the surface it would appear that he chose miguel...but the honest truth is he didn't have any other options that would pay as much. so now...he's forced into this match that he chose to avoid when he retired after the hatton fight. will the pattern repeat? i think so.

i am now going on record....cotto is going to be the first fighter to beat floyd.

(then next month...when pac faces bradley...he's also going to lose. that doesn't apply here because pac isn't self managed. ) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

This post has been edited by daprofessor: May 1 2012, 08:32 PM

[bnoles4life]

My two cents in this whole thing:

That vid, IMO, doesn't reinforce anything old or open my eyes to anything new. Floyd is Floyd and this vid proves it. He's egomaniacal, starving for attention, envious, hypocritical, contradicting and....oh, yeah...THE best boxer on the planet. IMO, Floyd doesn't overlook ANYONE. ANYONE. If he was going to overlook any opponent(s), it would've been JMM and/or Shane. Result: collectively, those guys won maybe 1 or 2 rounds out of 24. He's dialed in to this Cotto fight....something fierce.

That being said, I believe Cotto is a live dog in this fight, but it's going to take something he hasn't done in quite awhile: finish strong. While he has good power, he doesn't possess that automatic "buzz" power. He breaks cats down over time. "Time" is the one thing, ironically, that doesn't play in your favor in a May fight. The longer he sees what you're trying to do, the more likely he counters that and uses it against you. In addition, I think Cotto has some "cruise control" in him. I think when adversity (read: gets buzzed or hurt) sets in and he doesn't like the look of it, he'll set his ride on "cruise control" and try to let it ride. I get the Margs fight (I mean, after all, he was getting hit w/ building blocks inside a pair of gloves), but after Pac made pudding outta those legs of his (via the chin), that good ole' "Sandman" backpedal from the Apollo came out. I'm just wondering, what if HE underestimates Floyd's power and gets his "beard" checked, what then?

Cotto's left hook is the play here....if he tightens it up, it could be interesting...however, if it's wide, he's gonna have some problems....which, IMO, will surface early.

Like I said, 2 cents.

[Cshel86]

that good ole' "Sandman" backpedal from the Apollo came out. I'm just wondering, what if HE underestimates Floyd's power and gets his "beard" checked, what then?

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)