Saturday, April 12, 2008

Live Results, Cotto-Gomez


Atlantic City, NJ (Phanatic Magazine) - It's not often you can put together a fight for the mythical pound-for-pound boxing championship.

Theoretically, Bob Arum and Floyd Mayweather Jr. could get together and book such a bout in the welterweight division but the current kingpin is too busy padding his resume elsewhere.

Mayweather, the game's current consensus pound-for-pound king, has spent a lot of his time gearing up for the 7-foot, 400-pound Paul "Big Show" Wight at Wrestlemania XIV or the fetching Cheryl Burke on "Dancing with the Stars".

When he does step between the ropes, it's against the extraordinarily popular but overrated Oscar De La Hoya or a hyped-up overachiever like Ricky Hatton. And, you really can't blame Mayweather.

Fights against De La Hoya and Hatton put more money in his pocket and don't carry nearly the danger of a prospective match with Miguel Cotto, a legitimate contender for Mayweather's pound-for-pound crown and the WBA welterweight champ.

So, the undefeated undefeated Cotto was stuck fighting at Boardwalk Hall against the overmatched Alfonso Gomez, he of "The Contender" fame, a boxing reality series that has already been cancelled by two networks.

Predictably, it as just a night at the gym for Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) as he easily stopped Gomez when the ringside physician recommended the Mexican walk away between the fifth and sixth rounds.

Cotto knocked down Gomez three times, twice from body blows in the second and third rounds and again in the waning seconds of Round 5.

Give Gomez credit, however. He never gave up and kept going forward throughout. In fact Gomez threw 316 punches to Cotto's 369 but landed only 20 percent. Cotto landed 51 percent en route to defending his title.

Maybe the biggest upset of the night was Gomez lasted nearly as long as IBF welterweight champ Kermit Cintron.

In the other main event Cintron (29-2, 27 KOs) lost his championship to nemesis Antonio Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) at 1:57 of the sixth round when he succumbed to a punishing body blow that likely broke a rib.

Cintron is now 0-2 versus Margarito and 29-0 against the rest of the world.

A right cross by Margaraito hit Cintron on the button before a left hook found the former champ's midsection and he crumbled to the canvas.

Cintron was ducking throughout the fight when Margarito scored and complained about shots to the back of the head. It was a frivolous argument since Cintron was forcing the Mexican to hit him there.

The undercard began with a six-round middleweight bout between Puerto Rico's Angel David Gonzalez and New Jersey's own Richard Pierson. Pierson (7-1, 4KOs) was the stronger fighter and pressed the action throughout, landing some solid counter-punches early and taking a unanimous decision over Gonzalez (6-5-1, 3 KOs), 59-56, 59-55 , 59-55.

The featherweights were up next with Texas' Olvin Meija facing Puerto Rico's Luis Cruz. Cruz (5-0, 3 KOs) stayed undefeated with a hard-fought six round unanimous decision over Meija (3-2-1, 3 KOs). All three judges scored it 58-56.

A middleweight encounter saw Ronny Vargas (5-0, 4 KOs) on the Bronz scored a third round TKO victor over journeyman Roberto Irrizarry (2-4) with a series of stiff rights. Irrizarry's corner threw in the towel at 2:51.

In a super middleweight bout, Omar Coffi (0-0-1) of Venezuela went to a draw with Dan Mouton of Houston in his debut. Judge John Stewart had Coffi winning decisively, 40-36, while Joseph Pasquale saw Mouton winning 39-37. Luis Rivera has things deadlocked at 38.

The final undercard bout saw Puerto Rico's Jesus Rojas (11-0, 9 KOs) dominate Columbia's Andres Ledesma (14-9-1, 9 KOs) in a Super Bantamweight bout. Rojas toyed with Ledesma until putting him away at 2:14 in the fourth round.



1 comment:

William K Wolfrum said...

Thanks for the updates John. Will be staying her in hopes you'll update the two big fights on the card.

Bill