Puerto Rica's finest current Welterweight (Miguel Angel Cotto)

Member Name: iamasadlittleboy

Product:	Miguel Angel Cotto
Date:	12/01/09 (142 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Power, speed, killer instinct

Disadvantages: Confidence may be shattered after loss in Tony

Sorry before I start can everyone read tommyhearns's review on Cotto as well as it's exceptional good luck on getting a crown for that mate as it really is good.

Man after reading that it really will be hard to beat but lets start at the beginning.

The start:
Miguel Angel Cotto was born on October 29, 1980 in Caugas Puerto Rico to a family that has over recent years become engrossed in boxing, with Miguel and his brother Jose' Miguel Cotto, as well as uncle (and trainer) Evangelista.

Puerto Rican boxing:
For those not familiar with boxing Puerto Rico, much like Mexico is a bit of a boxing hotbed of talent with a nice long list of Former or current world champions (over 50 in fact) including:
Sixto Escobar (the first Puerto Rican world champion) down at Batamweight
Carlos Ortiz (the first Puerto Rican to win titles in 2 weights) at Lightweight and Light Welterweight
Jose Torres at Light Heavyweight
Wilfred Benítez (first Puerto Rican world champion in 3 weights) at Light Welterweight, Welterweight and Light Middleweight
Wilfredo Gómez at Super bantamweight, featherweight and super featherweight
Carlos De León at Cruiserweight
Héctor Camacho (First and only Puerto Rican to have won world titles at 7 weights)*at Super featherweight, lightweight, light welterweight, welterweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light middleweight
Felix "Tito" Trinidad at Welterweight, Light Middleweight and Middleweight
John Ruiz (First and only Puerto Rican to win a world heavyweight title) at Heavyweight
Ivan Calderon at Minimumweight and light flyweight
and most recently the KO sensation Juan Manuel López (Junama) at Super Bantamweight.

As an Amateur:
Cotto had a stellar amateur career appearing in:
1998 Junior World Championships (silver)
1999 Pan-Am Games
2000 Sydney Olympic Games (losing in the first round to eventual Gold Medallist Mohammad Abdullaev, who Cotto has beaten since both turned Pro)

Turning pro:
Cotto Turned Pro in 2001 where his talent lit up the then talent packed 140 (light welterweight) division, which had the likes of Kostya Tsyzu, Zab Judah, and Demarcus Corley at the top, our own Ricky Hatton holding the lightly regarded WBU belt. After racking up 6 fights in 2001 (6-0 (4)) 2002 was looking bright for him.
2002 had 7 fights all wins winning 6 of those inside the distance (taking his record for 1 January 2003 to 13-0 (10)), having only been taken the distance by John Brown who had twice fought for the IBF Super Feathweight title against Steve Forbes (some may recognise the name from The Contender).

2003 Saw Cotto go 5-0 (5) including wins over former Lightweight World champion Cesar Bazan and future and future Light Welter champion Carlos Maussa. As well as these two excellent victories Cotto collected a few trinkets along the way most noteably the WBC International Light Welterweight Title.

2004 Started with a fight against the experienced Victoriano Sosa (KO 4) then he faced the tough Australian (via South Africa) Lovemore N'dou, who took Cotto the distance for the first time since the John Brown fight. N'dou would later become a world champion himself, and has still never been stopped.

World Champion:
On the 11th October 2004 after just 20 fights he took on Kelson Pinto (21-0) for the Vacant WBO Light Welterweigth title. Cotto stopped Pinto in the sixth to claim his first world championship that he defended his title 6 times.
The first of these defenses was against Randall Bailey which was stopped on cuts to Bailey's in the 6th round after being dropped twice.

2005 Started with a tough test against former WBO light welterweight titlist DeMarcus "chop chop" Corley who was 29-3-1 and had never been stopped. Cotto beat him by TKO in round 5 and followed this with the revenge win over Mohamad Abdulaev via TKO in round 9. 2005 Ended with another stoppage win, this time over previously undefeated KO machine Ricardo Torres (28-0 (26)), Cotto took his 0 via 7th round KO. Torres, like many of Cotto's victims, would go on to win a world title.

2006 Continued in the same vein with a win over Gianluca Branco who was 36-1-1 (only loss was via points to Aturo "Thunder" Gatti). Cotto stopped him in the 8th. Before facing another unbeaten future world champion in the form of powder punching Paul Malignaggi who took a tremendous 12 round beating (much to Malignaggi's respect) losing on points.

Stepping up to Welterweight:
Cotto had been struggling to make the weight at 140 and so stepped up, straight into a WBA welterweight title fight against another unbeaten Puerto Rican (and another future world champion) in Carlos Quintana. Quintana was 23-0-0 with 18 KO's and coming off a then career best win against Joel Julio (27-0-0) by a points win.
Quintana was pulled out after 5 one sided rounds making it 3-0 for 2006 and 28-0 for his career upto then, winning a second world title.

Between 2005 and 2007 Cotto's opponents had a combined record of 152-5-2 and included 3 previously unbeaten future world champions, 1 former world champio and a former Olympic Gold medallist.

2007 started with the first defence of his WBA welterweight title, against Otkay Urkal who was 38-3-0 and had only been beaten in title fights (he was 0-3 in them losing twice to Vivian Harris and once to Kostya Tsyzu). Cotto stopped Urkal in the 11th round after being well ahead on points anyway.

Next came Zab Judah (34-4-0) in the summer of 2007, Judah was a 2 weight champion (Light Welterweight and Welterweight, where he held 3 Major belts). Though with losses in previous fights to Carlos Baldomir and Floyd Mayweather Jr (both by points) and having gone 0-2-0-1 in his previous 3 perhaps (just maybe) this fight should have bee questioned more than it has been. Judah got stopped for the second time in his career (previously stopped by Kostya Tsyzu) in the 11th round.

Next he fought a shoe-in for the Hall of Fame in "Sugar" Shane Mosley in a fight that was described as "a rare moment in sports when a sudden star rises from what is categorically termed as goodness, to the cusp of greatness." (Vivek Wallace from East Side Boxing). Cotto won the fight on a rather close points decision against the former 3 weight champion (Lightweight, Welterweight and Light Middleweight). In beating Mosley, Cotto became only the third man to beat him (both Ronalrd "Winky" Wright and Vernon Forrest have 2 wins each over Mosley).

After a long line of tough fights came a relative gimme against Alfonso Gomez (of "The Contender" fame) who was 18-3-2 and coming off good wins over Ben Tackie (points) and Aturo Gatti (KO7). Cotto stopped Gomez for the first time in his career (a retirement after round 5).

The First loss:
Cotto faced off against the 36-5-0 "Tijuana Tornado" Antonio Margarito on the 26th July 2008 in what I class as the fight of the year. Despite the 5 losses on "Tony's" record, 3 were in his first 12 fights, 1 was a technical decision and 1 was to "The Punisher" Paul Williams who is currently resembling the great Tommy Hearns.

Margarito had often been labelled the most avoided fighter in the sport, mainly as none of the money fights had gone his way (notably a fight with Floyd Mayweather Jnr, a fighter many have said avoided Cotto, and Williams). This was to be the fight to decided the #1 Welterweight in the world and the hype had been coming since the fight was first mooted unlike most fights...this lived up to it.

Cotto taking the first 5 or so rounds boxing beautifully, just totally outclassing the clumsy but relentless Margarito. The pressure paid off in the second half of the fight with Tony slowly but surely starting to control the fight and making a mess of Cotto's face until Cotto could no longer carry on and was TKO'd in the 11th round.

Cotto's return:
Cotto's next match will be against britains Michael Jennings (34-1-0 (16)) in a fight for the WBO welterweight title. In what is expected to be a walk over for Cotto to ease himself back into the ring after the fearful beating against Margarito.

Trivia:
Jose' Miguel Cotto is 28-1-1 and is 0-1-1 in title fights, where as Miguel Angel Cotto is 12-1 in title fights and 32-1-0.
No less than 5 of Cotto's opponents have gone on to win world titles since Cotto beat them.
Cotto only has 1 first round KO and that was his debut against Jason Doucet depsite 26 KO wins in 33 fights.
Cotto beat 6 previously undefeated fighters, 4 of which won world titles.

* Some of these titles were with lowly regarded organisations including the WBE, IBC and NBA

Summary: Is almost certainly a legend in the making