SecondsOut.com - By Jerry Glick. Miguel Cotto, the WBA Junior-Middleweight Champion, successfully defended his title and settled an
old score with former conqueror Antonio “The Tijuana Tornado” Margarito
when referee Steve Smoger, on advice from the doctors, halted their
rematch at the end of the ninth round with the Mexican’s fragile right
eye swollen shut. Officially it is a tenth round TKO.
They
fought in front of a partisan, sold out, crowd of 21, 239, who cheered
everything Cotto did and booed Margarito for everything he did.
Cotto,
37-2 (30 KOs), dominated the fight throughout using movement and quick
flurries of punches to unsettle and disrupt Margarito’s attack over and
over again. This avenges a suspect loss that Cotto suffered at the
hands of Margarito back in 2008.
Since their encounter
Margarito, 38-8-0-1 (27 KOs), was allegedly caught loading his hand
wraps before a fight with Shane Mosley creating the controversy that now
surrounds many of Margarito’s past performances. Cotto said before the
fight that he believed that he was the victim of the former
welterweight champ’s cheating when he took a savage beating in their
first fight.
Cotto, 152 ¼ pounds, from Caguas, PR, said
recently that he tired after the sixth round in 2008, but there was no
fatigue evident on either man as they engaged in a non-stop struggle
from the first bell to the last one. Cotto set the pattern early using
the ring to hit and not be hit by changing directions, stepping to the
side, ducking under and walking away before the taller, slower Mexican
before he could land a solid punch. He did not let emotions cloud his
plan. Cotto put on a defensive boxing 101 class. He never let the
tall, stronger challenger set himself for his punches and had Margarito,
of Tijuana, Mexico, chasing after him rather than attempting to cut the
ring off, which would have been a better tactic for the challenger. The
Puerto Rican fan favorite had his strategy and never wavered. There
were moments when he did engage his opponent, but the champion only did
that when it was prudent. He never allowed himself to be sucked into a
street fight.
As early as the third session, Margarito, 152 ½
pounds, had blood coming from a cut on the right eyelid. That eye may
have become vulnerable because of the damage that it suffered in the
Pacquiao fight that had Margarito on the operating table twice to
correct the damage which included replacing his lens and fixing a broken
orbital bone.
The ring physicians checked the eye after
the eighth round but allowed the fight to continue, but as the eye
worsened, one doctor admitted that the original injury, “Was always in
the back of their minds.”
After the fight Cotto explained
the difference between Margarito’s power in the first fight with this
one, “I’m still waiting,” he said.
“There’s no place like
New York,” said Bob Arum, the exuberant head man at Top Rank who
promoted the show at the Mecca, Madison Square Garden. “This guy owns
the town. He’s the biggest ticket seller, ever, in New York.”
Arum
is always thinking and planning, “There are a lot of guys (to match
Cotto with). The one guy I’d love to see him fight, and right in this
arena, is (WBC Middleweight Champion Julio Caesar) Chavez.”
At
that point Cotto jumped in to say that he is a Top Rank fighter,
“Always,” putting any doubt about his resigning a contract with Arum at
rest. “He’s my promoter,” said the Champion. “And he’s going to be,
always.”
A disappointed Margarito said that he will
continue to fight, but where the much reviled boxer can go from here is
problematic at best. He has suffered heavy beatings in three out of his
last four fights, his career was, and may remain, in jeopardy since
being accused of loading his gloves
