There seems to be two main criteria for selecting Mayweather opponents these days. 1) It should make for a marketable fight. 2) It must also allow for the upstaging of one Manny Pacquiao. The second part of that is what makes this a curious match making decision. The potential for bragging rights seem slim with Pacquiao already having demolished Cotto in a fashion you feel is hard to best, while Mayweather now must contend with a refocused and rejuvenated Cotto.

Floyd will tell you this is the biggest challenge of his entire pro career. He has himself made the argument for Cotto still being an undefeated fighter (weight drained against Pacquiao, cheated by Margarito). Where as he will be boxing the real deal Miguel Cotto, in his preferred weight class and at his best.
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Paul McCloskey makes his return to Belfast’s Kings Hall tonight, where he continues his march back towards title contention against faded veteran and former title WBO champion DeMarcus ‘Chop Chop’ Corley.

I use the word faded as it’s an accurate term to describe the 37 year old Corley. Past his best; certainly, but not ‘gone’ or ‘shot’, just faded. His recent record doesn’t glisten, but it also has a tendency mislead. While Corley has lost more than he’s won since dropping his title to Zab Judah back in 2003, he’s also the b-side in pretty much every fight he takes these days and generally does better than expected.

Corley brings huge experience to this fight having fought everybody at light welterweight at one point of another. There have been occasions where he’s been unlucky with the judges, times when he was flat out robbed, and others where he was simply bested by a better fighter, but it’s a testament to his character that he’s maintained a winners mentality through it all. He will go into this fight like he does every other; expecting to upset the applecart.
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There’s talk that this fight could do over 1.5 million buys, which is amazing to me considering Miguel Cotto has already lost to Manny Pacquiao and he currently sits as an 8-1 underdog. The promotion has been very good and the 24/7 show has been sprinkled around cable television on channels like CNN and TNT.

The go-home episode begins with yet another contrast of the two fighters. Cotto is shown at home celebrated by his fanbase. Maywather is shown under the covers joking that it’s not a guy with him (it’s Miss Jackson), taking a small shot at Cotto and his buddy Bryan Perez.

We finally see Oscar De La Hoya who says that he can finally pass the torch in boxing to Saul “Canello” Alvarez. How? Alvarez doesn’t even speak English and his fanbase is hugely Mexicans, not Mexican-Americans. Oscar appealed to everyone, but mostly Americans. His fanbase isn’t much different than Manny Pacquiao’s US fanbase. That was a weird comment. Alvarez and Shane Mosley is the semi-main.

Floyd says that he tries to turn all negatives into positives, including his upcoming jail term.

Verdict: There wasn’t much to this show, but the visuals were good. If you can buy Cotto as a legit possibility to upset Mayweather, then they did a really good job with this show. Cotto didn’t say a lot. But they showed his desire. You really get the sense that Floyd is in a top class and if Cotto can beat him, he can join that top class. I still don’t know how much I believe that can actually happen, but they tried to contrast each guy and give you the idea that maybe Floyd is over-looking him. But it’s the same story they’ve been telling and it hasn’t happened yet.

The Betfair Prizefighter series makes it’s way to Ireland for the first time this Saturday for an all Irish middleweight line up. With the tournament serving as support to the Paul McCloskey vs. DeMarcus Corley light welterweight clash, McCloskey along with rising Belfast star Carl Frampton performed the draw today at the Stormont Estate.

Quarter Final Brackets:
Eamonn O’Kane (4-0) vs. Anthony Fitzgerald (13-2)
Ciaran Healy (13-9-1) vs. Ryan Greene (5-0)

Darren Cruise (3-1) vs. JJ McDonagh (6-1)
Simon O’Donnell (11-1) vs. Joe Rea (7-7-1)

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The show stars off with Floyd Mayweather doing a 5K run for Habitat For Humanity, in which he also donated 100,000 dollars. There was a Filipino person he was cheering on and he called him Pacquiao. I knew that was coming and I still laughed. It was wrong for me to laugh, yes I know.

He and 50 Cent went shopping and ended up buying Miss Jackson two pairs of shoes for 10,800 dollars. And yes, he paid in cash.

Miguel Cotto’s team is doing some lactic acid test by taking blood from his ear to test his muscle fatigue. Cotto’s trainer says he’s in optimal shape and he believes they’ll win. Cotto is trying to earn some praise from his trainer by telling him he knows he’s doing well.

Mayweather brings up last week’s episode where Cotto and his buddy Bryan Perez mentioned that they sleep in the same bed together. Mayweather pulled out some money and said he wanted Cotto to sleep comfortable because he’s going to make him uncomfortable.

Roger Mayweather says he’s sharper for this fight than for any fight except for maybe the Diego Corrales fight. Mayweather says something really interesting. He says that he thinks he has five fights left. His uncle says he’s fighting more accurately. Mayweather says it’s hard to fight accurately because he’s fighting all on PPV and it takes 6 months to build a fight, meaning he’s fighting sporadically and it’s hard to stay sharp when you’re not as active.

Cotto says he’s prepared for a tough 12 rounds. Mayweather gets his pupils dilated and can’t see well, but I guess he doesn’t have to see well to hit the speed bag.

The Verdict: There’s a neat juxtaposition of Floyd Mayweather. All we see is him clowning around. But the conversation with his uncle says that he might be close to his top level ever. I don’t get that with Cotto even though his trainer pretty much says the same thing. But all the trainer changes, even after his recent success says something. Cotto has a few constants in his life and he’s close to those people. Otherwise, he doesn’t seem to be close to many, including his new trainer. I’m more convinced today that Mayweather wins this fight. Maybe we’ll see something different next week.