By Rob Smith: WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (36-2, 29 Ko’s) took apart Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KO’s) tonight, stopping him in the 10th round after cutting and closing his previously injured right eye. The fighters battled in front of a sold out Madison Square Garden in a sometimes back and forth fight. Margarito just didn’t have the hand speed or the power to really pose much of a threat in the fight. This is what some boxing fans were afraid of when the fight was put together, seeing it as a case of Bob Arum putting Cotto in with a shot fighter in Margarito. Well, Margarito looked like he had too many miles on him tonight, which is sad because a lot of people paid a lot of money to see this fight and it wasn’t even remotely a competitive fight.
At the start of the 10th round, the ringside doctor stepped in and called a halt to the fight due to Margarito’s right eye being completely shut. Margarito wasn’t really fighting a competitive fight and there were no signs that he was coming on and about to win. Cotto did a great job of moving, hitting and cinching Margarito to keep him from doing much.
The fight unfortunately wasn’t nearly as appealing as the first fight due to Cotto’s constant movement, but at least he avenged his defeat and got the win. Cotto can now, if he wishes, fight WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. in early 2012. That’s a fight that their mutual promoter Bob Arum wants to put together in an in house. As far the fight goes, Margarito was cut early on around the right eye, and the eye closed up in the 7th. Cotto took some shots from Margarito but it was mostly one-way traffic.
Margarito looked a lot slower than he used to be and he wasn’t much of a threat to Cotto. That’s not to say that Cotto is unbeatable at this point, because there are a number of fighters in the division that would give him problems if Arum was to put Cotto in with them. Personally, I’d like to see Cotto fight some guys that are actually in their prime and not partially hampered from injuries or old age. Look at the guys that Cotto has been matched against in the past year:
Antonio Margarito – Slower from age, and fighting with a damaged right eye that quickly closed tonight.
Ricardo Mayorga – 38-years-old
Yuri Foreman – fighting on only one good leg.
I’d much rather see Cotto fight some young lions instead of the old or the injured guys that are being fed to him. How about Vanes Martirosyan, James Kirkland, Austin Trout or Sergiy Dzinziruk?
In other action on the card:
Brandon Rios TKO 11 John Murray
Delvin Rodriguez UD 10 Pawel Wolak
98-91, 98-92 & 100-90
Glen Tapia KO 2 Mike Ruiz
Sean Monaghan KO 2 Santos Martinez
Samuel Figueroa SD 4 Latwon Halsey
Hanzel Martinez MD 4 Felipe Castaneda
Mike Lee TKO 4 Allen Medina
Mike Jones UD 12 Sebastian Andres Lujan