Miguel Cotto had a thrilling 47-fight career over the span of 16 years and faced some of the biggest names in the sport, not least Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather.
The four-weight world champion had 14 successful title defences during his campaign, but would lose belts to both of the Hall of Famers mentioned above.
Pacquiao snatched the WBO Welterweight World Title from Cotto in 2009, stopping him with less than a minute to go on the clock. The huge-selling box office bout prompted veteran promoter Bob Arum to brand Pacquiao ‘the best fighter’ he had ever seen – high praise considering he worked with Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard.
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Three years later, Cotto was relieved of his WBA super-welterweight belt by Mayweather via unanimous decision.
In a feature with The Ring Magazine, the Puerto Rican star ranked opponents throughout his career in various categories.
While he gave the nod to Pacquiao when it comes to best footwork, saying it was ‘very difficult to hit’ the Filipino fighter, he said the smartest, most-skilled and best overall fighter was Mayweather.
“He was so slippery in every moment of the fight. It was so difficult to get to him.
No doubt, Floyd Mayweather [was the smartest]. You can catch him with one good shot, but it is so hard to catch him twice that it makes me believe he is the smartest one.
Boxing and fundamentals, I would say Mayweather. The difficulty with Mayweather is that he’s so hard to catch him twice with the same mistake. He had very good skills. He had all the shots.
[Floyd] was smarter than everyone else. He was a really good boxer. He did everything about as well as anybody.”
Mayweather and Pacquiao would of course pit their skills against one another in 2015. Mayweather won on all three scorecards, but most feel the rivalry would have been better represented had it happened half a decade prior.
