Miguel Cotto: A great champion

By Boxing News - 03/26/2011 - Comments

By Thomas David Drury: February 9 2008 was the first time that boxers from Puerto Rico had held three of the four major welter-weight titles, WBA, IBF, WBO, when Carlos Quintana defeated Paul Williams to join Miguel Cotto and Kermit Cintron as champions in the division. Puerto Rican fighter’s have achieved numerous feats which include Wilfredo Gomez’s record for most defences in the super bantamweight division and for most successive knockouts by a title holder. Daniel Jimenez set a world record for quickest knockout in a championship fight, knocking out Herald Geier in 17 seconds (3/9/1994).

Ossie Ocasio was the first WBA cruiser-weight champion (3/2/1982) the list goes on. in the early days Boxing was practiced in an illegal manner in Puerto Rico, by 1924 organized boxing matches were set up all over the country, people who were caught organizing or participating in such match-ups were arrested by police. A proposal to legalize boxing in 1927 was approved and opened the flood gates of Puerto Rican talent. Wilfred Benitez became the youngest world champion in history at 17 (1976), This tendency continued for the next two decades, but there was a decline in the 1990’s with Felix Trinidad been Puerto Rico’s most notable champion during that period.

The most notable and popular champion from Puerto Rico is no other than Miguel Angel Cotto the current WBA super welterweight champion, a humble man and great advert for the sport of boxing, his professional record is 36 wins(29 knockouts) 2 losses, 0 draws. 23/02/2001 was Cotto’s professional debut winning Jason Doucet (U.S.A) by tko, Cotto then embarked on a 32 fight winning streak including wins against future Hall of Famer Sugar Shane Mosley, Zab Judah, Alfonso Gomez, Joshua Clotty. The stage was set for a 26/7/2008 showdown with Antonio Margarito at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, one of the most controversial fights in the history of boxing and a brutal loss for Cotto. Margarito was caught with loaded gloves in the moments before he was about to enter the ring with Shane Mosley by the instinctive trainer of Mosley, Nazim Richardson.

This illegal act of brutal intent makes many people question (including me) whether Margarito had loaded gloves in the Cotto fight this is possibly the case, as the pounding Cotto took was savage and uncomfortable to watch. Cotto was then victorious in his next two fights leading to a huge payday and match-up with p4p best Manny Paquiao, Cotto was once again stopped, people have started to question Cotto’s ability in the ring which quite frankly I find absurd. Since teaming up with Emmanuel Steward, Cotto has rejuvenated his career, beating Yuri Foreman and Ricardo Mayorga, looking good in doing so. (It is debatable whether Cotto needed rejuvenating, there is no shame in losing to the p4p best and a man with possibly “plaster hands”). Hopefully we will see Cotto-Margarito 2 and see Cotto hand out some personal justice.



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