Hunter: Cotto looked over-trained for Trout fight

By ESB - 12/04/2012 - Comments

By Bill Phanco: Trainer of Andre Ward, Virgil Hunter, gave his own assessment for why former three division world champion Miguel Cotto (37-4, 30 KO’s) lost to WBA World junior middleweight champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) last Saturday night in New York, saying that he felt that Cotto looked over-trained for the fight. Cotto lost the fight by a 12 round unanimous decision by wide scores from the three judges. They had the fight 119-109, 117-111 and 117-111. You can quibble about the scoring of the fight, but you can’t about the results. Cotto lost and he should have lost.

Hunter told RingTV “He [Cotto] wasn’t even up on his legs like he normally is, and he didn’t move like he normally moves…He trained too hard to be facing a 27-year-old…the combination of high altitude and the over-training [did Cotto in.”

I agree with Hunter about Cotto looking over-trained for the fight. I noticed that even before he walked into the ring. Cotto had the look of someone that had trained too hard and had taken off too much weight with much of it being muscle. Cotto must have overdid during the training camp this time, because he looked much less muscular than he did for his rematch against Antonio Margarito and for his recent fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr.

Hunter specifically mentioned Cotto’s training in the mountains at high altitude as being his undoing for this fight. I think that definitely didn’t help Cotto. Working out in the mountains has a way of tearing down muscles because you have to push so hard on the hills and the whole adjustment that your body has to make to the different altitude there and in coming back to ground level.

Cotto would have been better off training as he had before his rematch with Margarito because that Cotto would have been a lot stronger and more of a problem for Trout than this version. It’s possible Cotto would have still lost to Trout, but I think he would have done a lot better better.