Mayweather vs Cotto: Miguel Cotto Not Concerned With Public Opinion of His Chances

Miguel Cotto faces Floyd Mayweather Jr for the WBA junior middleweight and WBC Diamond junior middleweight titles on May in Las Vegas, live on HBO PPV, and has been answering a series of questions for HBO Sports leading up to the fight. Here's the latest installment of Cotto's fight blog heading into the fight, courtesy HBO.

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Many agree that this will be one of the toughest matches of your career. Does it discourage you when you hear some doubt your prospects of a win? How do you respond to those individuals?

"I think that's the nature of any competitive sport: you will always have people pulling for the other guy. To me, those that say all that stuff don't affect me as a fighter. I am not concerned that some commentator somewhere thinks Mayweather will KO me in four rounds or some blogger thinks this is a waste of a fight, and that Mayweather should be fighting someone else.

"That's not important and that KO will not happen. At this point in my career I know what to focus on and what to let go of. I am fortunate enough to be surrounded be a lot of love and support, and those are the people that motivate me. My priority is going out there, fighting the best fight I can and winning.

"If as a boxer you're paying attentions to odds and bets and all that nonsense, then you're not in the right sport. None of that is important when you and the other guy step into the ring. The only thing that discourages me is when people got hung up on that stuff. I know what I am capable of, and that's a win. Then people wonder how a loss would affect my career.

"Look, when I lost to Margarito I came back and avenged that loss. I come back, I'm a fighter. With this bout though, I'm in the best place I've ever been, training has never been better, so there's no doubt I will emerge the winner. You can count on it."