Manny Pacquiao vs. Miguel Cotto

Miguel Ángel Cotto Vázquez (born October 29, 1980) is a Puerto Rican professional boxer. As an amateur, Cotto represented Puerto Rico in the lightweight and light welterweight divisions at various international events including the 1999 Pan American Games, the 2000 Summer Olympics and the 1998 Junior World Championships where he won a silver medal.

Cotto began his professional career in 2001, and on September 11, 2004, he defeated Kelson Pinto for the WBO junior welterweight championship. He defended the title successfully a total of six times, before vacating it when he ascended to the welterweight division.

On his first match on this division he defeated Carlos Quintana for the vacant WBA welterweight championship. Cotto successfully defended this title against Oktay Urkal, Zab Judah, Shane Mosley and Alfonso Gómez, before losing it to Antonio Margarito. On February 21, 2009, he defeated Michael Jennings to win the vacant WBO welterweight championship. Defending the title against Joshua Clottey before losing it to Manny Pacquiao on November 14, 2009.

Professional career

Early in his career Cotto defeated former world title contender John Brown by decision in the tenth round. He led the score through the entire fight and scored a knockdown in the second round. The judges gave Cotto scores of 100-89 twice and 100-88.

In 2001, Cotto suffered a dangerous injury that threatened his boxing career. As he was driving to the gymnasium at 5 a.m. in the morning, he apparently fell asleep and crashed, breaking his arm and requiring hospitalization.

On September 13, 2003, Cotto defeated Demetrio Ceballos by knockout in the seventh round at Las Vegas. In a fight where Cotto injured Ceballos with numerous combinations in the sixth round, switching between the orthodox and southpaw stances. In the seventh round Cotto displayed an aggressive style that led to the referee stopping the fight with 0:32 remaining in the round. With this, he was ranked number one in his division by the World Boxing Association.

Cotto's first fight of 2004, was a fourth round knockout victory over the former world title contender Victoriano Sosa. This was after an eventful week prior to the fight, which included Cotto having to wait four hours for his luggage to arrive (after a 2 a.m. local time arrival) at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, and almost being removed from the Mandalay Bay Hotel, where the fight was held, by a security guard who thought he was an unaccompanied minor.

On April 8, 2004, he defeated the former world title challenger, Lovemore N'dou, by unanimous decision in Las Vegas. The first three rounds of the fight had a slow pace with neither of the boxers establishing control of the fight. Cotto dominated the fourth and fifth rounds managing to land combinations on N'dou's head. N'dou won the seventh and eighth rounds after landing more accurate hits than Cotto. The last three rounds were even with both fighters establishing short periods of control in the fight. The judges gave Cotto scores of 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113.

Pacquiao vs Cotto fight

On November 14, 2009, Manny Pacquiao defeated former WBO welterweight world champion Miguel Cotto, by technical knockout in the twelfth round, at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, in a fight billed as "Firepower". The fight was sanctioned as a world title fight in the welterweight division, where the weight limit is 147 pounds, however Cotto's camp agreed to fight at a catchweight of 145 pounds to accommodate Pacquiao's smaller physique. Cotto's camp also conceded the larger share of the purse to Pacquiao, who received a 65% share of pay-per-view buys, compared to Cotto's 35% share.

In the opening round Cotto appeared to have the edge, as he connected with solid jabs and managed to pin Pacquiao against the ropes. However, Pacquiao later admitted that he had allowed this to happen, as he wanted to test Cotto's power. From the second round onwards Pacquiao picked up the pace, knocking Cotto down in the third and fourth round, and going on to dominate the later rounds. After a heavily one-sided ninth round in favor of Pacquiao, wherein Cotto received significant punishment, many people thought that Cotto's corner should have stopped the fight. Cotto's wife even left the arena. However, Cotto decided to continue the fight, but could not evade Pacquiao's onslaught, prompting the referee to stop the fight fifty-five seconds into the twelfth round.

With this victory, Pacquiao took the WBO welterweight title, his seventh world championship, and became the first boxer in history to win seven world titles in seven different weight divisions. After the fight, promoter Bob Arum stated that: "Pacquiao is the greatest boxer I've ever seen, and I've seen them all, including Ali, Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard."

The fight generated 1.25 million buys and 70 million dollars in domestic pay-per-view revenue (preliminary figures), making it the most watched boxing match of 2009.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Cotto