He had a great plan. He was going to fight three times this year and end his career with a bang. He was going to fight a tune up bout in the spring to get him ready for his rematch with Floyd Mayweather Jr., who beat him in 2007. It was the biggest money fight of all time, and though the second fight more than likely wouldn’t have done the same business, it would’ve been the biggest fight of this year. And then, in December, he was set to end his career with one more fight, possibly in his home town.
Part one of the plan went to fruition. De La Hoya beat Steve Forbes in May to set up his fight with Mayweather. But Mayweather Jr. decided to retire instead of take the fight.
(According to Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer there were early talks for both De La Hoya and Mayweather Jr. to be involved in this year’s Wrestlemania to help sell their fight for later this year. Obviously, De La Hoya wasn’t involved in Wrestlemaina, but Mayweather Jr. was.)
We had play by play coverage of the EXC show, but didn’t have live coverage of the Cotto vs. Margarito fight. But we do have some thoughts afterward. Here’s the aftermath.
Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito
Duan
Show overall rating: Thumbs way up
This was easily my favourite fight this weekend; a great performance from both men. Margarito was absolutely relentless. He took everything Cotto had in his stride and continued to press the action. It was really dramatic watching as he clawed his way back into the fight, after Cotto established a big lead early on. I had the fight pretty even going in to the 11th round, where the knockout took place. Cotto started showing signs of disillusionment from the 7th round, and it became a matter of whether or not he could ride out the last few rounds and sneak the decision. By the 11th round it was evident that he just had nothing left to give. His corner made the right decision to pull him from the fight at that point. It could be a tough loss for Cotto to rebound from, as he was defeated both mentally and physically.
Because I’m watching the EXC show, I’m not able to watch the big fight tonight. ESPN.com has the punch by punch analysis.
I’ll be back here to add more information as I watch how the match develops.
Update: Margarito stopped Cotto to win in the 11th round. From the looks of it, Cotto was ahead early, but Margarito picked up the pace near the end of the fight. Margarito is the new champ.
I’ll have more later, but it looks like it was the classic fight everyone expected it to be.
Bad Left Hook said that Cotto was up 97-93 until Margarito took over.
Dan Rafael said that this fight gave boxing fans a true battle.
Though people will want to see De La Hoya and Mayweather Jr. get involved here, why not let these guys have a rematch. I imagine it would do better business than the first fight.
I used to do a post once or twice a week at my old site in which I posted links and recapped news stories. I’m bringing it back. The column was MMA only, but because our new site focuses on MMA, boxing, and pro wrestling, so will this column.
News and notes from around the MMA world …
- The UFC Fight Night payouts were just a we bit less than the Affliction payouts. Yes, it said that Tim Sylvia made nearly $800,000 for 36 seconds of work.
