Cool Cotto gets long-sought revenge

NEW YORK – Other than the raucous sell-out crowd of 21,239 fans which roared for Miguel Cotto's every move, little seemed different between Saturday's bout with Antonio Margarito and their first match in 2008.

Cotto boxed beautifully in both bouts and peppered Margarito with a series of of hooks, jabs, crosses and uppercuts. And just as in their epic 2008 bout in Las Vegas, Margarito kept barreling forward the whole way.

But at the post-fight news conference Saturday following Cotto's 10th-round technical knockout victory, the World Boxing Association super welterweight champion patted his cheek softly in an attempt to explain the difference.

"I'm not going to say anything about the last fight and this one, but my face now is a lot different," Cotto said in a none-too-subtle jab at his vanquished rival.

Months after that superb 2008 bout that Margarito won by 11th-round stoppage, Cotto came to believe that Margarito had fought with a hardened insert in his hand wraps. That led Cotto to repeatedly call Margarito a criminal and started the bitter feud between the two.

Cotto exacted his revenge on Saturday, using a series of left hands to target Margarito's questionable right eye. After Margarito's one-sided loss to Manny Pacquiao last year, Margarito needed multiple surgeries. He broke an orbital bone in the bout, had a lens implanted and a cataract removed.

The New York commission waited until less than two weeks before the bout to grant Margarito a license because of concerns about Margarito's eye. Not only were there fears about the surgeries, but there were concerns whether he could see to adequately protect himself.

Despite the large welt that closed his right eye, Margarito complained that the fight was stopped too quickly

"Cotto was protected," Margarito said, almost sneering.

Cotto wasted little time attacking Margarito's eye, firing hooks and a hard jab at it from the first round. Margarito's eye began to swell badly by the third and, by the eighth, it was completely closed. Margarito and his corner, particularly co-manager Francisco Espinoza, pleaded with Dr. Anthony Curreri to let the fight go forward.

They won the battle after the eighth round, but lost it following the ninth. The bell rang to start the 10th, but Margarito did not come out of his corner, as Espinoza argued with Curreri. Curreri finally went over to speak with referee Steve Smoger, and Smoger ultimately stopped it on Curreri's advice.

"I think it was a little bit of favoritism because my eye was worse when I fought Pacquiao," Margarito said. "The doctor asked me three times 'How many fingers am I holding?' and I responded correctly. I think I could have continued. I asked for at least one more round."

But Margarito wasn't walking Cotto down the way he did in the first fight. On the few occasions when Margarito did land a good shot or two, Cotto smartly tied him up. Margarito thus never was able to gain the momentum he had in the second half of the first fight, when he broke Cotto down and stopped him.

Cotto conceded Margarito's toughness, but felt his boxing skill and his work with new trainer Pedro Diaz made the difference in the outcome.

"He's still a very strong fighter, but I'm way better than he is," Cotto said. "I'm very happy and very proud of what I did tonight. There was a lot of hard work in this training camp. It showed that the strategy worked."

It was made easier by the fact that Margarito's right eye closed so quickly. The eye, which required 12 stitches to repair, was a mess. Because of the swelling, Margarito had zero vision out of it by the time the fight ended. Promoter Bob Arum, though, dismissed the idea that Margarito's surgeries contributed to his problems on Saturday.

"Fighters' eyes close all the time, particularly when they're cut," Arum said. "I don't think it had anything to do with the surgery. Miguel was targeting the eye. He cut it and it closed."

Cotto went at it hard, and each time, Margarito talked to him, taunting him and urging Cotto to try it again.

The problem was, Cotto's speed and punching accuracy were too much and Margarito was unable to slow the onslaught. Cotto landed 43 percent of the punches he threw, according to CompuBox, a very high number. More telling was that he landed on 51 percent of his power punches, most of which were left hooks.

"I had a job to do and I did it and I did it well," Cotto said.

Despite the outcome, the bad feelings between the sides weren't diffused. After the fight, Cotto's mother was in the ring trash talking Margarito.

She asked Margarito if he still felt like Cotto hit like a girl, since Margarito had mocked Cotto's punching power prior to the fight. Instead of walking away, Margarito talked back.

"His mom came up to me and asked if he hits like a girl," Margarito said. "I said, 'Yeah, because the punches didn't hurt me.' The swelling got worse and worse and that's the reason [it was stopped]."

Cotto, who fought with a cool precision, didn't gloat at the post-fight news conference, though. In what was one of the defining performances of his career, he won eight of nine rounds on all three judges' scorecards and beat his biggest rival.

He wouldn't say the hard feelings were over, but he wouldn't say they weren't, either. "He has his own life, and I have mine," Cotto said. "He can keep with his life. I'm going to keep with mine."

After being an angry young man for most of the last three years, Cotto is going to go on with his life much happier and more contented.

That's what happens when you vanquish your greatest rival.

The smiles come easy.

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