By George M. Phillips, undercard by Jose Martino, at ringside
Puerto Rico has a storied history in the sweet science and has produced many legendary fighters most notably: Felix Trinidad, Hector Camacho, Wilfredo Benitez, Wilfredo Gomez, Carlos Ortiz, Edwin Rosario, Sammy Serrano, Jose Torres, Estaban De Jesus, John John Molina, Wilfredo Vazquez, Alfredo Esealera, Miguel Cotto, Pedro Montanez, and Juan LaPorte.
Tonight from Bayamon, Puerto Rico, hometown hero Miguel Cotto, in front of an adoring crowd, defended his WBO Light Welterweight Title against WBC #1 ranked contender Gianluca Branco and battered him on route to an 8th round TKO. Cotto was coming off of 3 knockout wins in 2005 and in each of those wins showed his heart by being in trouble early on in all three of these fights, and he came back to win them all.
Brief round by round
Round 1: Cotto only has one first round knockout in his career. Cotto began to use his money punch, a sledgehammer left hook to the body against Branco. Cotto had a very good first round. Branco did not appear to be loose and used much of the first round to break a sweat.
Round 2: Branco began the second round with the traditional European style of boxing by facing his opponent standing straight up. Cotto seems to be pacing himself and eyeing up his opponent to stragtically land punches. Cotto was thoroughly in control in the second round and landed a few hard left hooks to the head that shook Branco with a solid shot. Cotto landed 13 out of 43 power punches in round 2.
Round 3: Branco landed a good right hand over the top to begin round 3 but immediately went into his defensive envelope to protect himself from a barrage of punches from Cotto. Cotto is again cutting off the ring and landing his signature punch. Cotto is punching through Branco defense and landing a well crafted blend of body and head shots. Cotto ended the 3rd round with a technically perfect right hook to the head.
Round 4: Branco is fighting Cotto’s fight by standing in front of him. Branco a purer boxer, has not been knocked out on 37 fights can not afford to allow Cotto to keep punching at his high connect percentage that he has shown in the first three rounds and the first half of round 4. Cotto utilized his jab and upper cutting right through the guard of Branco.
Round 5: Branco begins round 5 with an apparent accidental head butt from Cotto and also lands a hard right hand. Branco is beginning to move forward, pushing Cotto back. Branco was the aggressor in round 5, but did little or no damage to Cotto. There appears to be blood on the top of Branco’s head from the accidental head butt.
Round 6: The pace of the 6th round began a bit slower with both fighters trading shots at the center of the ring. Cotto backed up Branco into the ropes and began to bang the body. Cotto kept Branco against the ropes for most of the round working the body. Branco lands a big right hand to Cotto to end the round, but Cotto appeared to walk right through it.
Round 7: Branco continues to stand in front of Cotto and opens himself up to Cotto’s punches. It looks as if Branco’s jaw has been broken. Branco is landing some jabs to attempt to keep Cotto at bay but to no avail. Branco is very brave, but is being battered by a relentless assault by Cotto. Cotto is slowly breaking down his opponent.
Round 8: Branco is only landing approximately 14% of his punches per round and appears on the verge of quitting. The referee steps in at 49 seconds of round 8 stops the contest when Branco appears to be in serious pain from a shot Cotto landed on his shoulder. A tremendous, dominant left hook performance by Cotto.
Jr. featherweight prospect Juan Manuel "JuanMa" Lopez would go the full distance of a fight for the first time in his career and would take a unanimous decision over Gilberto Bolanso by scores of 79-73, 79-73 80-72. Lopez, who is looked at by many as the next great Puerto Rican fighter, failed to take advantage of fighting before a packed arena to make his case as being the best prospect of the island. Lopez would look tired through large parts of the fight and was even occasionally booed by the crowd. The fight should however serve as a learning experience for the young fighter who improved to 10-0 with 9 KOs. It was announced at the post fight press conference that Lopez will be back on the 31st of March in a bout to be televised on Showtime's SHO BOX boxing series.
After losing the first round and get dropping in the second, Carlos Varcacel would fight back and just barely avoid a loss when his match with Oscar Blanquet was announced to be a majority draw. One judge would see Varcacel losing 58-56, but would be over ruled by the other two judges who both saw the fight even at 56-56.
In an exciting and competitive bout Mario "The Ponce Prince" Santiago would come away with a TKO victory over Terry Lantz with only a few seconds remaining in the last round. Santiago and Lantz would trade blows through out the fight with Mario getting the best of most exchanges. Santiago appeared to be winning most of the rounds, but not without having to work hard in each of them. With less then a minute remaining in the match things would really start to heat up prompting Santiago to raise arms calling for the crowd to cheer him on. The crow would response with screams of support which may have helped in referee Luis Pabon to call, what appeared to be a premature stoppage to the bout. While Santiago was landing many blows at the time the bout was halted Lantz did not appear to be hurt and seemed to have his wits about him when the match was stopped. Never the less it was an impressive performance for Santiago who improved to 15 and 0 with 9kos and Lantz can take pride in his performance as his record goes to 9-5-1.
In an uneventful affair Jose Correa improved to 7-1 with only one ko by taking a unanimous decisión over Calvin Pitts (3-6-1). The crowd mostly booed both combatants as they provided little in the way of action or entertainment for that matter.
Two of Evangelista Cotto's fighters would make memorable debuts to kick off the show. Jesús Rojas impressed the crowd at hand by disposing of Christopher Sanchez at 2:46 of the first round. Rojas would come out throwing strong left hooks and powerful rights that were visibly hurting his opponent from the sound of the bell of the opening bell. Cotto's other debuting fighter, Gamalier Rodriguez, faced a more experienced foe, in Henry Matos and as a result would have to work a bit more to finish his opponent. The result would be the same however, an impressive KO, at 1:30 of the 3 rd round.