Boxing. Cotto.v.Clottney.HDTV.06.13.09

Boxing-Miguel Cotto vs Joshua Clottey-WBO Welterweight Championship –June 13, 2009. HDTV.Avi



Perhaps not since 1981, when Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns and Roberto Duran were terrorizing the welterweight division have there been as many quality 147-pounders as there are today. The current pound-for-pound top10 fighters list includes welterweights Paul Williams, Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto.



There are few active men in boxing more enjoyable to watch than Cotto, who on Saturday, June 13, 2009 defended his World Boxing Organization belt at Madison Square Garden against another talented welterweight, Joshua Clottey, in a bout televised nationally by HBO.



Cotto (33 wins and 1 loss), from Puerto Rico, is the modern-day version of Roberto Duran. Clottney (35 wins and 2 losses), from Ghana, is known to have a strong chin and a fierce body shots attack.



The fight promoter, Top Rank, has made a tradition of having Cotto fight in New York on the night before New York’s popular Puerto Rican Day parade, a move that has paid off handsomely. The Garden was sold out on Saturday, and there weren’t many Ghanaians in the building cheering on Clottey. The solid gutsy Puerto Rican figher Cotto is the man the crowd came to see because the Puerto Rican fans come out to worship him each time he fights, much as they did for Felix Trinidad in an earlier decade.



Cotto has power in both hands and so much torque on his body shots that he makes guys wince in agony. But Cotto is not one to predict knockouts. He’s not there to land one big hook, get the knockout, pick up the check and move on to the next one. He’s there to batter you for 12 rounds, turning the ring into a torture chamber.Cotto had sneered upon hearing allegations that Clottey predicted a knockout – which Clottey denies having said – and in typical fashion said he never will predict a knockout himself. “I train for 12 rounds,” Cotto said. “I train for the whole fight. He has it in his mind the fight is going to be less than 12 rounds; if he thinks he’s going to beat me and if he trained for less than 12 rounds, he’s going to get a big surprise.”