Miguel Cotto beats Joshua Clottey at Madison Square Garden
Miguel cotto beat a good welterweight tonight at Madison Square Garden. It wasn't easy and it was indeed closer than Cotto and his legion of noisy fans expected, but the champion overcame a nasty cut over his left eye to eke out a split decision over Joshua Clottey.
The officials scores were 116-111 and 115-112 for Cotto and 114-113 for Clottey. This corner saw Cotto a 7-5 winner by rounds. Cotto retained his WBO welterweight title before 17,734 fans, many of whom will march with Cotto Sunday in the Puerto Rican Day parade.
I'm going to steal from A.J. Liebling here - if you are going to steal, why not from the best? - Joshua Clottey is as good a fighter as you can be without being a damn good fighter. Twice Clottey has challenged for the welterweight title and twice he has come up just short.
Clottey was knocked down in the first round and Cotto was cut terribly along his left eye in the third round. It was clear the cut was bothering him. He pawed at it often and at times would quickly shake his head -- the way someone does when they have wet hair -- to try and remove the blood from his line of sight. The fear in the Cotto corner was that eventually he wouldn't see the vicious right hands Clottey was throwing.
The cut was Clottey's opportunity. And while Clottey capitalized a bit, he failed to press his advantage when it mattered most -- the second half of the fight. Those right hands came less and less.
Cotto, a gunslinger from Caguas, Puerto Rico, changed his approach to fighting and it saved his title. Rather than brawl, Cotto boxed and piled up just enough points to win. That is somewhat like going to see Alex Rodriguez hit and he goes 3-for-5 with two singles and a double. It's nice, but it's not exactly what you paid form
I'll steal from another great here - George Benton used to tell his fighters - "Win tonight, look good next time."
So Cotto won and it was a good fight. It really was. There were lots of give and take and both guys showed tremendous heart. Cotto looked better at the Garden against Shane Mosley and Zab Judah. But the 17,000 Puerto Ricans who made Madison Square Garden vibrate with noise, didn't seem to care. Cotto won and that made them happy, no, actually it made them delirious.
He can look good next time.
-- CASSIDY
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