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Freddie Roach: 'We will be the first to knock out Alvarez'

LAS VEGAS – Freddie Roach got rolling Monday, running through a list of reasons why he believes Miguel Cotto will knock out Canelo Alvarez and retain the middleweight title on Saturday when they meet at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Cotto came to Roach in early 2013, a very shopworn 32-year-old whose best days were seemingly behind him.

The thought of Cotto stepping into the ring with a young and aggressive fighter like Alvarez seemed absurd in early 2013. Cotto had too many miles, had taken too many punches and had lost so many of his fundamentals.

Miguel Cotto has revived his career since joining forces with trainer Freddie Roach. (Getty)
Miguel Cotto has revived his career since joining forces with trainer Freddie Roach. (Getty)

He’d absorbed a brutal beating from Manny Pacquiao in 2009 in a bout in which Pacquiao might have been at the peak of his powers. He took a significant amount of punishment in his 2012 bout with Floyd Mayweather Jr., which showed seven months later when Cotto lost to Austin Trout, starting the first losing streak of his career.

Cotto wasn’t Cotto anymore, but he wasn’t ready to quit. He was desperate, searching for answers, and he did what happens so often in sports: He couldn’t fire the players so he fired the coach.

He’d already accomplished so much in boxing that had he retired after the Trout fight, the only thing that would have kept him out of the International Boxing Hall of Fame would have been the mandatory five-year waiting requirement.

Fighters sometimes are the last to know when their time has come, though sometimes they do know and, with nothing else to do and no other source of income, they fight on anyway in search of a last big payday.

However, a funny thing happened when Roach accepted the offer to become Cotto’s trainer: Cotto suddenly didn’t look so old. His feet didn’t seem stuck in the mud. His attack wasn’t so one-dimensional. He wasn’t so slow. He wasn’t hit by everything an opponent threw.

He mauled an extremely overmatched Delvin Rodriguez in their first fight with Roach, then lifted the middleweight title from Sergio Martinez on June 7, 2014.

On June 6 of this year, Cotto defended his belt by stopping Daniel Geale.

It hasn’t been a bad run: Three fights, three knockouts, two wins in championship bouts and a seeming return to glory.

Saturday comes the big test of the Cotto-Roach Era. Rodriguez had little business being in the ring with Cotto, Martinez was a shadow of his former self, and Geale was significantly weight-drained.

So while Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) got his hand raised each time, he wasn’t fighting a good, smart and in-his-prime 25-year-old like Alvarez.

A good rule of thumb in boxing, which puts physical demands on the athletes that few other sports do, is to always favor a good 25-year-old over a good 35-year-old.

Not surprisingly, then, Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) is a little better than a 2-to-1 favorite to defeat the 35-year-old champion.

But Roach, who is as blunt and direct as a slap to the face, isn’t concerned. He made minor adjustments to what Cotto was doing and quickly saw major results.

Cotto (R) works the mitts recently with Freddie Roach. (Getty)
Cotto (R) works the mitts recently with Freddie Roach. (Getty)

“The biggest issue was his boxing ability, because he can box very well,” Roach told Yahoo Sports. “I used to watch him in the amateurs and he had such great footwork. But somewhere along the way, he got away from it. There wasn’t too much footwork and he was just sitting down, trying to knock people out. And when you sit down on your punches, you’re also setting yourself up to be hit, also.

“That’s what happened to him against Pacquiao. He sat down against Pacquiao, but Pacquiao had the speed to beat his punch. It wasn’t really good for him. But the biggest thing was to get his boxing ability back. Somebody along the way took away his left hook and convinced him his right hand was his best punch. That’s not true.”

Cotto has thrived under Roach’s direction, and it’s Roach who is his biggest advantage. In terms of formulating a game plan and then making adjustments during a fight, no one is better than Roach, and in a head-to-head with Alvarez trainer Eddy Reynoso, Roach wins in a landslide.

Reynoso is good, but Roach is great, a six-time Trainer of the Year who has repeatedly reinvented fighters and is as confident as ever.

"It's going to be a great fight, and we are looking for a knockout in this fight, and we will be the first to knock out Alvarez, and I can't wait to get this one on its way," Roach said.

Cotto has never been the most loquacious athlete, but in the stretch run of his career, he can barely contain his dislike for the media. He gives curt answers to questions and reveals little about himself, his team or his opponent.

On a recent conference call, he wouldn’t discuss the failures of his past, but he gave a few hints about why he’s such a good fighter with Roach.

“Our chemistry is the best thing we have with each other,” Cotto said. “It makes our relationship and our fights together the way they have been for us.”

Yeah. Not exactly revelatory.

But Roach said Cotto has been an apt and willing student, one who has been a joy to coach. He has a high boxing IQ, Roach said, and eagerly agreed to work on the little things that Roach believes are so important.

“Take the left hook,” Roach said. “He’s done so much work and brought that back to where it’s a real force. Now, he’ll sit down on it for a second, throw it and get out. There are a lot of these basic moves he did at one time and it somehow got away from him, to be honest with you. We go over the game plan together, me, him and Marvin [Somodio, Roach’s assistant trainer] and it makes everything easier.

Canelo Alvarez, 25, is a formidable opponent. (Getty)
Canelo Alvarez, 25, is a formidable opponent. (Getty)

“Miguel has done what we needed him to do and he’s embraced the game plan. We’re going up against a guy who is a good fighter, who has youth on his side. [Alvarez] could use that to his advantage, but I think we’re a lot smarter than they are, and we’ll use it against him.”

Roach has a way of coaxing great performances out of veteran fighters. He trained Oscar De La Hoya, who promotes Alvarez, for his 2007 bout against Mayweather. De La Hoya in 2007 was much like Cotto is now, seemingly on the decline with his best days behind him.

Roach came up with a plan that could have worked against Mayweather had De La Hoya not tired. He was leading the fight at the midpoint, but abandoned the jab in the second half of the bout.

Roach believes Cotto will not only win, but win by knockout.

The trainer doesn’t have to step into the ring and talking never won a round, let alone a fight.

Cotto, like so many fighters before him, has fully embraced the Roach doctrine.

And so while others may scoff at Roach’s words, Cotto believes them.

Little in this bout is more important than that.