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Puerto Rican star prevails after being badly hurt twice
24/09/2005
By Scott Shaffer
Miguel Cotto retained his WBO junior welterweight title in an exciting back-and-forth battle with little-known Ricardo Torres in Atlantic City, New Jersey on Saturday. Torres came in unbeaten, untested and undeserving of the WBO's #1 rating, but the Colombian made a name for himself by giving Cotto all he could handle. Still, Torres could not match Cotto's firepower, finally succumbing in the seventh round. Cotto and Torres traded knockdowns in the first two rounds. When he was hurt in the second, Cotto showed good heart but a surprising lack of survival skills when he was unable to clutch Torres to stop the attack. In the third, Cotto wisely concentrated on Torres' body, and even though he was warned twice for low blows, the strategy paid off as he reclaimed control of the fight. A borderline body shot dropped Torres in the fourth but Torres rebounded to hurt Cotto in the fifth. The highlight reel continued in the sixth when Torres went down in the last ten seconds of the round. Torres landed a strong combination to start the seventh but Cotto trapped Torres against the ropes and finished him off with a strong upstairs-downstairs combination that resulted in a ten count. Cotto remained undefeated, and will move up to #3 in the Boxingtalk ratings, behind only world champion Ricky Hatton and pound-for-pound king Floyd Mayweather. source: HBO
