Floyd Mayweather vs Miguel Cotto fight preview for HBO championship fight

Calling all Boxing fans!

MMAmania.com will be your home for results, updates and LIVE fight coverage of the Floyd Mayweather vs. Miguel Cotto WBA light middleweight championship bout this Saturday night (May 5, 2012), at 10 p.m. ET from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada.

"Mayweather vs. Cotto" will be one of the biggest combat sports events of the year, as is usually the case whenever "Money" fights.

To help get you better prepared for this weekend's festivities, we've laid out a breakdown of how each competitor has fared up to this point within their respective pugilistic careers, as well as a comparison of their common opponents and a couple of highlight videos so you can familiarize yourselves with each man's style.

We'll start with none other than Floyd "Money" Mayweather after the jump:

Floyd Mayweather

The American-born Mayweather is widely considered to be the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world.

Not only that, his popularity amongst fans of the sport is rivaled only by that of Manny Pacquiao, whose Filipino compatriots treat every "Pac-man" fight as though it were a national holiday. Adding to his intrigue, Mayweather holds a professional record of 42-0, and we all know as mixed martial arts (MMA) fans that when an undefeated champion fights, it's just that much more exciting.

He won his first world championship at 130 pounds in 1998 and since then, he has won four more world championships at 135 pounds, 140 pounds, 147 pounds and 154 pounds. He's beaten such great fighters as Oscar De La Hoya, Diego Corrales, Arturo Gatti, Zab Judah, Juan Manuel Marquez and Shane Mosley.

At 35 years old, Mayweather is entering the twilight of his career and there is now a very real possibility that he will join Rocky Marciano and Joe Calzaghe as one of the greatest fighters in boxing history to go through his entire professional career undefeated.

Of course, should he finish his career without facing Pacquiao, there will be a considerably large asterisk next to his name and he will forever be dogged by the question, "Did he avoid 'Pac-man' because he was afraid to lose?"

Miguel Cotto

Cotto hails from Puerto Rico and while he is not as well known as Floyd (in part due to his very reserved and humble public persona), he is a very accomplished and dangerous fighter.

His professional record stands at 37-2, with his only two losses coming to Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito. The loss to Margarito was marred by a loaded hand-wraps controversy and when the two men met in a highly anticipated rematch, Cotto stopped Margarito in the tenth round, avenging his honor and giving even more credence to the theory that Margarito was only able to beat him because of the hardened plaster he placed in his gloves.

If we ignore that loss, Cotto has only fallen to Pacquiao, which is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

He is an inch shorter than Mayweather, but he is a little bit bulkier and has fought most of his career in a class above that in which "Money" was competing. He won his first world championship in 2003 at a weight of 140 pounds. He has since won championships at 147 and 154 pounds.

The biggest wins of his career are over Joshua Clottey, Zab Judah, Shane Mosley and the aforementioned Margarito.

Despite having almost the same number of fights on his record as Mayweather, Cotto is just 31 years old, four years younger than Floyd. I'm not sure how long he plans of fighting for, but with the recent addition of trainer Pedro Diaz, Cotto could easily be in the game for five or six more years.

When the curtain goes up on Saturday, he will become the fifth man to have faced both Mayweather and Pacqiao, something that he can definitely tell his grandchildren about when he is an old man.

Common Opponents:

• Shane Mosley. Fought Mayweather in 2010, Cotto in 2007.
  How Mayweather did: The fight with Mosley brought some drama for Mayweather in the second round, as he was stunned and forced to cover up for a large portion of the round. Mosley was unable to capitalize on the damage and Mayweather would end up winning a unanimous decision
  How Cotto did: Cotto won a decision that was never much in doubt, outworking Mosley for the majority of the fight, making "Sugar" look rather slow in comparison.
• Zab Judah. Fought Mayweather in 2006, Cotto in 2007.
  How Mayweather did: In a fight that saw Roger Mayweather get tossed for entering the ring following a low blow in the tenth round by Judah, pretty boy Floyd won a unanimous 12 round decision.
  How Cotto did: Cotto knocked Judah down once in the fight and stopped him via technical knockout in the eleventh round.
• DeMarcus Corley. Fought Mayweather in 2004, Cotto in 2005.
  How Mayweather did: Mayweather won a unanimous 12 round decision over Corley in a pretty unheralded fight.
  How Cotto did: Cotto stopped Corley in the fifth round by technical knockout in a fight that took place in Cotto's home country.
• Victoriano Sosa Fought Mayweather in 2003, Cotto in 2004.
  How Mayweather did: Another unanimous 12 round decision for Mayweather.
  How Cotto did: Another stoppage for Cotto, this time in the fourth round, again by technical knockout.

What can we make out of the fact that of the four common opponents they have, Cotto has stopped three, while Mayweather has stopped none?

Well, not much.

Mayweather has never been one to post gaudy knockout numbers (26 in his 42 wins), preferring to use a spectacular defensive style (and if defense could ever be called spectacular, Floyd's qualifies) to frustrate his opponents and win on points. Cotto is a much more of a power puncher, scoring 30 knockouts in his 37 wins, so don't look at these results against common opponents and expect that Cotto should be the favorite.

To show you what I mean about their different styles, check out these highlight videos that HBO released just a few weeks ago.

Mayweather:

Cotto:

If you missed any of the first three episodes, you can get up to speed with our recaps and full video of each installment of HBO's hype vehicle below:

Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three

Saturday night is fight night, and we'll have everything covered, from live round-by-round results, a post-fight recap and quotes from the post-fight press conference.

See you then!

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More Mayweather-Cotto Coverage From SBN
Bad Left Hook | SB Nation | MMA Mania | Bloody Elbow

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