Written by Sean Malone | 27 July 2008

While it may not have been a candidate for Fight of the Year honors the fact remains that Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto engaged in a brutal battle for the ages.  After eleven brutal punishing rounds it was Margarito that dug deep within his internal reserves to gut out and stop the undefeated Cotto.  It was an awe inspiring display of attrition on the parts of both fighters who fought with all the pride, passion, and brutality that any fight fan could ever ask for.   The early rounds of the fight seemed to reaffirm the thought of Cotto being the superior technician and boxer as the Caguas banger put forth a masterful performance.  Cotto would utilize constant movement to keep the stalking Margarito from planting his feet to throw all the while letting go of three and four punch combinations that landed with alarming frequency to the mug of Margarito.  In fact for the first couple of rounds Cotto put forth an attack of surgical precision landing landing hard flush shots that snapped Margarito's head back upon delivery.  Margarito seemed cautious and at times tentative in letting his hands go.  Perhaps it was a ploy to conserve energy but me thinks it was due in large part to Cotto's flush left hook and right hand that seemed to land whenever thrown.  But while Cotto was putting forth a masterful illustration of the proverbial boxer-puncher the winds of change were begining to swirl.  It was around round six that Margarito stopped simply plodding after the agile Cotto and began to make angles for himself all while letting his hands go, particularly the hook to the body and and the uppercut.  Undefeated bantamweight Abner Mares went on record with us here at the Ring Report in stating that the uppercut would be the difference in the fight and boy was he right.  In the seventh round Margarito's uppercut assault began to tenderize the face of Cotto which began to wear a crimson hue as blood poured from the nose of the Puerto Rican fighter.  Cotto was clearly hurt by Margarito's thudding shots and perhaps was a bit dismayed by his inability to hurt the Tijuana Tornado despite landing shots so clean and hard that the would have cut down a sequoia.   Though buzzed and on unsteady legs Cotto had the resolve to make it through the seventh without tasting the canvas.  The cobwebs seemed to have been cleared in Cotto at the start of the eighth round as he began to uses fleet movement to avoid the hard charging Margarito.  Cotto regained his form in the ninth as the battle went nip and tuck for most of the round.  Margarito continued to try and impose his will on the squat Cotto but the proud Puerto Rican would have none of it and countered nicely off the ropes.  Margartio, mouth agape and sporting a swollen face similar to that of Cotto's, begins to close the gap in the tenth round.  After eating some hard leather served up by Cotto, Margartio digs deep in to his reserves and manages to hurt Cotto with some hard shots.  As Cotto wearily steped out into the center of the ring to start the eleventh it was evident that the fight was quickly leaving the stoic boxer.  Margarito seemed to sense this as well and upon catching a second wind shifts into gear.  A left uppercut followed by a chopping right hand forces Cotto to take a knee.  Rising to beat the count, his legs clearly not under him but possessing a resolve that most could never imagine, Cotto presses on but there would be no reprieve as the end was imminent.  Cotto backing up and wearing the look of a broken man was met by a charging Margarito who after landing yet another hard salvo of punches is rescued when his trainer Evangelista Cotto throws in the towel.  It has been a long and arduous journey for Margarito but now he sits atop the sport as welterweight champion of the world. 

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