Mayweather vs Cotto: Miguel Cotto Not Protesting Scoring Despite Rumors

In the last two days, there have been some rumors about Miguel Cotto possibly protesting the scoring of his loss on Saturday to Floyd Mayweather, where the official judges had Floyd the winner on scores of 118-110, 117-111, and 117-111. But Cotto says that he has no plans to protest the scoring, despite the fact that his team felt the scores were too wide.

"I have accepted every one of my defeats. Throughout my career, without excuse, I assumed my role as winner or loser without complaint, let alone without any protest. What was published and the expressions given in the past few days were the opinions of my team and not mine."

Cotto (37-3, 30 KO) fought valiantly and impressed the viewing audience on Saturday, but I don't think there's any doubt that he lost to Mayweather, and outside of thinking 118-110 was a bit too wide, I can't say as though I had any problem with the scoring, either, and God knows we're all about calling out boxing judges when something seems fishy or just plain wrong. Bad Left Hook scored the fight 116-112, but that or 117-111 seemed dead on to me.

I believe that sometimes people fail to totally grasp, in the heat of the moment like this, that scores can be wide in a competitive fight. Timothy Bradley's win over Lamont Peterson was competitive throughout, too, and I had that either 10-2 or 11-1. It's just that Bradley kept winning the rounds, even though Peterson was hanging in with him. They add up. Cotto won no more than four rounds of this fight. It adds up.

You can't just score on a surprising effort, and I do think a lot of people were surprised by how well Cotto did, but even fighting very well, Mayweather generally fought better in the rounds, and he won the rounds. In other words, I get the impression that some people hear "117-111" or "118-110" and they think, "They were closer than that!" Maybe they were closer in reality than on the scorecards, and I definitely though I watched a better fight than what my ultimate summary would be -- that Cotto was competitive, but Mayweather clearly better -- but the scoring wasn't strange to me.

I think if they watched the fight now, Cotto's team would have a lot of trouble finding more than three or four rounds to give to their man. I think Cotto would have trouble finding them, to be honest, not that he's the one complaining (apparently).