By Jason Kim: Using an early body attack, Antonio Margarito (37-5, 27 KOs) took the wind out of WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto’s (32-1, 26 KOs) sails, stopping him in the 11th round of a scheduled 12-round bout tonight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Cotto, 27, led most of the way taking most of the early rounds of the fight with his faster hands and blistering counter punching. However, as if on key, Cotto tired out in the second half of the fight and began to take serious punishment at the hands of Margarito, who for his part just never stopped punching.

Cotto then began running almost constant, occasionally stopping to throw a quick flurry to try and steal the rounds and impress the judges. Though it may have been enough to steal the 8th and 9th, the nonstop shots from Margarito to the body and head of Cotto were having a depleting effect on his stamina.

Cotto could no longer run by the 10th round, his legs completely gone and looking as if they were stuck in molasses. Without his ability to run and move out of the way of Margarito, Cotto was like a sitting duck in front of him. Without a strong chin, the logical conclusion to the bout came to the front as Margarito hurt Cotto badly at the end of the 10th round staggering him badly.

Cotto was given a brief time to recover in between rounds, but as bad as he was hurt it was obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to last out the 10th unless he somehow could run the entire rounds. In the 11th round, Margarito came out on fire throwing brutal shots to the head and body while Cotto just stood and cringed, trying to cover up like a wounded deer. It wasn’t long before Cotto , his nose bleeding like a faucet, took a knee to escape from his punishment.

Upon getting up, Cotto was met with more fire from Margarito causing Cotto to take a knee for a second time. This time the referee stopped the fight at 2:05 of the 11th with Cotto’s corner throwing in the towel to save their fighter from taking any more brutal punishment from Margarito.

Cotto looked to be the more skilled of the two fighters, but he couldn’t seem to handle Margarito’s ferocious work rate which seemed to more than negate Cotto’s superior boxing skills. Cotto used a lot of lateral movement, along with bobbing and weaving to avoid many of Margarito’s shots. However, Margarito’s constant flow of punches simply overwhelmed Cotto’s defense whether it be his guard or his attempts at moving. None of it was effective for long at stopping Margarito from coming forward and throwing a barrage of shots.

Even if there wasn’t a knockout, it seemed abundantly clear that Margarito was on his way to a victory because of his much better work in the last half of the fight. Thankfully, Margarito scored a knockout and took the judges out of the equation, because with Cotto being the more popular fighter going into this fight, he might have very well have been given the fight even though he mostly ran for his life the last six rounds of the fight.