Be willing to learn

Cotto is a legend and a sure-fire future Hall-of-Famer. He had worked with a number of trainers in the past, including the late, great Emanuel Steward. Having lost two successive bouts, it would have been easy for Miguel to blame this poor run of form on his age, wear and tear or the style of his conquerors. Instead, Cotto focused on the factors he had the ability to affect and employed a new training team. Roach and MacMillan suggested several new drills and routines and Cotto rose to the challenge. “He had gone through a rough time with the losses to Mayweather and Trout and he was at a point where he was really frustrated with his camps for a lot of different reasons,” MacMillan explained. “He was just used to, for his conditioning, he would run six days a week and other guys would have him doing Olympic lifting and things like that.

“What impressed me was his willingness to learn at 32 years old, like an 18-year-old boxer.”

From Roach’s dedication to the renewal of Cotto’s deft footwork and technical skills, to MacMillan replacing Olympic lifting with an accelerating isokinetic machine and mixing cycling into Miguel’s cardio line-up, the enthusiastic fighter approached everything that was asked of him with relish.

“Freddie and I are going over the basics and working hard every day,” Cotto confirmed. “Gavin has a great and respectful training philosophy that I have been following since day one. He is the best in the business.

“I have always had the same mentality to work hard every day and leave it all in the gym to have the best out of it on fight night. It’s still the same way.”

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