With a heavily Puerto Rican crowd on his side, Miguel Cotto proved, if nothing else, that’s he’s difficult to beat if his opponent plays within the rules.
Cotto and his camp were enraged when Antonio Margarito was discovered with illegal hand wraps shortly before a bout with Shane Mosley in 2009. Cotto’s handlers, assuming Margarito had used the same illegal hand wraps a year ealier, cried foul over Margarito’s technical-knockout victory over of Cotto in 2008.
Despite Margarito’s taunting and grinning during the fight, no amount of preening could prevent Cotto from rearranging his face in a fight that was stopped after the ninth round.
The pro-Cotto crowd at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan celebrated loudly, but Cotto was more dismissive in the postfight interviews.
“Just look at him and taste my victory on him,” Cotto said, according to ESPN. “He means nothing to me. I’m here with all my crowd and all my people. He means nothing to me.”
There is no evidence Margarito cheated in the first fight, which ended in the 11th round in Las Vegas. The vastly different results — and some circumstantial evidence — will be taken as proof enough by Cotto and his supporters.
“My face now is a lot different than last time,” a smiling Cotto was quoted as saying.
Photo of the day
Margarito’s face wouldn’t stop bleeding after the fight. For the life of me, I can’t understand why.
Photo via Top Rank/Chris Farina
Quote of the day
“We didn’t cost this conference any money, because we ought to be in a BCS bowl. If Houston’s not going, we ought to be going and then everybody would get their money like they want.”
— Southern Mississippi coach Larry Fedora on the perception that his team cost Conference USA millions in BCS bowl money by beating previously unbeaten Houston in the league championship game on Saturday
Tweet of the day
Fair enough.
