by David P. Greisman
 
The clothes make the man. Fighters step into the ring wearing only their pride, their trunks, the boots on their feet and the gloves on their hands.
 
Miguel Cotto was clad in red, fiery when fighting, a man unafraid of having his own blood spilled, stoic amid battle but emotional once victorious.
 
Joshua Clottey was the man in black, a dark cloud looming, looking to extinguish Cotto’s fire, a panther prowling after his prey.
 
Each had chosen a single color for his wardrobe. Each choice remained fitting after their war was over.
 
The moment he was announced as the winner, Cotto closed his eyes and leaned his head back before quickly nodding it forward, letting out a “woo” while raising his arms, clapping his hands and pumping his fists. Signs of relief. His heart pumping. Blood flowing.
 
Clottey turned his head, opened his mouth, put his arms out and mouthed “no.” Unblinking, he trudged toward Cotto, embracing him out of respect for tradition but not for the decision. Disbelief. His heart stopping. The dark cloud now storming.
 
Clottey believed he had won. Instead, he was at a loss.
 
His defeat was an open-and-shut case – Clottey cost himself victory in the first and last rounds of the fight.
 
Clottey began the bout by getting off on the wrong foot. In the final seconds of the opening stanza, Clottey lunged forward to throw a left hook. Cotto struck first, though, catching him with a stiff jab. Clottey, up on his toes, his weight on his left leg, lost his balance and fell backward. He was up immediately, and down immediately, too, behind 10-8 on the judges’ scorecards.
 
He would come back, however, aided by another last-second crash.
 
With 20 ticks left on the clock in the third round, Clottey dipped and began to throw a right hook. What hit Cotto, though, was Clottey’s head, opening a gash on Cotto’s left eyebrow.
 
Cotto came out in the fourth with urgency, throwing more punches than he had in any of the preceding rounds. He landed 21 of 77 shots, with 15 of those coming in the last minute.
 
Had the fight been stopped due to the cut before the bell rang to close that fourth round, the bout would have been ruled “No Contest.” At any point after the fourth round, the fight would go to the scorecards instead. Cotto’s fourth-round rally served to ensure, if the fight were to end right then, that he was in the lead.
 
The bout didn’t end. Both men – and the momentum – kept swinging.
 
Crimson continued to drip into Cotto’s left eye in the fifth, leaving him blind to a stream of Clottey right hands.
 
And then Clottey was sent to the canvas for the second time that night, though not from a punch.
 
Two minutes into the round, Cotto had backed Clottey into the red corner. Clottey leapt. Cotto ducked. Clottey landed with both of his arms resting on Cotto’s back. Cotto rose up and Clottey dropped off, bellyflopping onto the mat.
 
Clottey writhed in agony for 40 seconds before referee Arthur Mercante Jr. pulled him to his feet.
 
“Walk it off,” Mercante told Clottey. “Be a champ. Suck it up.”
 
Clottey limped and hopped, favoring his right leg, resting for a minute. Cotto soon took advantage of an unsteady Clottey and made his stand.
 
For 120 long seconds in the sixth round, Cotto kept Clottey trapped in the blue corner, hammering him with an arsenal of jabs and crosses, hooks and uppercuts.
 
Clottey survived the salvo, 95 punches from Cotto in a three-minute span, 35 of which landed.
 
Clottey’s hurt leg had him at a disadvantage for minutes. Cotto’s bleeding eyebrow troubled him for the remainder of the fight.
 
Cotto began to paw at the cut with his right hand. Clottey aimed his own right hand at the same spot.
 
In the eighth round, Clottey landed more than half of his power punches, hitting Cotto with 23 of 45.
 
Four more rounds of the same, and Clottey could claim his victory.
 
The close makes the man. Clottey failed to close the show. He threw fewer punches than before. Cotto moved to his left, attempting to elude harm. Clottey followed, more stalking, less striking.
 
Clottey landed 18 of 53 punches in the ninth, compared to 14 of 63 for Cotto. Clottey landed 16 of 50 in the 10th, compared to 7 of 44 for Cotto. Clottey landed 19 of 47 in the 11th, while Cotto landed 19 of 54.
 
Clottey let Cotto back into the fight, and then Cotto took the 12th clearly. Clottey lost the focus that had won him rounds earlier in the fight, complaining about being punched behind the head and, soon thereafter, about getting hit below the belt.
 
The final bell rang. Clottey raised both arms in the air, sure he had triumphed. Cotto put his left glove up, though not for long. He remained stoic, holding off on emotion until he knew for sure.
 
He waited four-and-a-half minutes for Michael Buffer to read the first scorecard, 116-111, in his favor. The second scorecard was 114-113 for Clottey. The third, 115-112, gave Cotto the win.
 
Clottey gave Cotto the win, too. He landed more punches, connecting with 222 of 622 shots. Cotto, in comparison, landed 179 of 723. But Clottey didn’t pull away when he needed to, allowing Cotto to last the distance.
 
The close makes the man. In the end, it was Cotto, in the red, whose flame was still burning. Clottey, in the black, was a dark cloud dissipating.

The 10 Count

1.  For the record, this scribe had Joshua Clottey beating Miguel Cotto, 115-112 – but, aside from Don Trella’s seemingly wide scorecard favoring Cotto by a 116-111 margin, I have no problem with Cotto winning the fight. There were two rounds I scored for Clottey that I noted as being close. Had I given those rounds to Cotto, I would have had him winning instead of Clottey, six rounds apiece, 114-113.

2.  One wonders where Joshua Clottey goes from here after coming up short for the second time in his biggest fights.
 
Clottey has been lower on the totem pole under promoter Bob Arum than his fellow welterweight stablemates, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito. Clottey is a solid fighter who belongs in the upper echelon of his division, but he is not a superstar or a meal ticket a la Pacquiao or Cotto.
 
A Cotto-Clottey rematch would be good. So, too, would a rematch between Margarito and Clottey, should Margarito be allowed to fight again after getting caught with tampered hand wraps before his January bout with Shane Mosley.
 
Clottey gave Margarito trouble early when they faced each other in December 2006, though Margarito came back and took a unanimous decision.

3.  One big fight is on, another big fight has been postponed.
 
We start with the postponement of the welterweight bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Juan Manuel Marquez, which had been scheduled to air July 18 on pay-per-view.
 
Mayweather suffered a rib injury in training camp, according to the Associated Press. The bout will be rescheduled.

4.  Meanwhile, a rematch between light heavyweights Chad Dawson and Glen Johnson is a go. The two locked horns in April 2008 in a highly competitive fight that saw Dawson win via unanimous decision. The bout was so close that an immediate rematch seemed the most logical choice.
 
Instead, Dawson went on to pad his bank account with two one-sided matches against Antonio Tarver, becoming the latest person to make Johnson one of the most-avoided opponents in the sport.
 
The fight will air this fall on HBO, which probably demanding the pairing as part of its investment in Dawson. No date has been announced.

5.  What was to have been a boxing match between 48-year-old former boxing heavyweight titlist Ray Mercer and 33-year-old formed mixed martial arts heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia became a bout sanctioned under MMA rules.
 
It didn’t matter.
 
Mercer basically kept the bout a boxing match for as long as it lasted – nine seconds.
 
According to a report on Sherdog.com, Sylvia, who weighed in way above the UFC heavyweight limit of 265 pounds by tipping the scales at 311 pounds, threw a leg kick in the opening moments. But then Mercer threw an overhand right that took Sylvia off his feet and followed with two more right hands as Sylvia lay defenseless on the mat.
 
Mercer-Sylvia had been due to meet May 30 in Atlantic City, but the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not sanction the match. The fight was moved to June 13 in Alabama, a state without a regulatory body. The promoter attempted to have a Canadian tribal commission regulate what was still supposed to be a boxing match, but doing so would have been illegal. Hence the fight was held under MMA rules.

6.   Mercer called out Eric “Butterbean” Esch afterward. The former boxing “King of the Four-Rounders” has a boxing record of 77-7-4 (58 knockouts) and an MMA record of 10-6-1. As a boxer, Mercer was an Olympic gold medalist, had a record of 36-7-1 (26 knockouts) and once held a heavyweight title.
 
Before knocking out Sylvia, Mercer had twice lost in kickboxing matches and was submitted in 70 seconds by Kimbo Slice.
 
Go figure.

7.   So strange that it somehow makes sense: Mercer wants to go from Sylvia, a former MMA heavyweight champion, 6-foot-8, 311 pounds, to Butterbean, 5-foot-11 and around 400 pounds – and Butterbean would be a more challenging opponent.

8.  Boxers Behaving Badly: A former heavyweight boxer who jumped in the ring with some of the sport’s better big men is looking at eight years in jail, according to Oklahoma City television station KFOR.
 
Jerry “Wimpy” Halstead fought from 1980 to 1997, compiling a record of 84-19-1 (62) and playing designated opponent to the likes of Wladimir Klitschko, Ray Mercer, Tommy Morrison, Greg Page and Tony Tubbs.
 
He crashed his car while driving drunk in 2002, killing his wife and leading to a charge of vehicular manslaughter. Recently the 45-year-old was arrested for driving under the influence, a probation violation that could mean his eight-year suspended sentence will become eight years behind bars.

9.  Boxers Behaving Badly update: A former cruiserweight fighter who later helped train Brad Pitt for a pair of the actor’s film roles has been found not guilty of attempting to kill a man, according to British newspaper The Watford Observer.
 
Robert “Bobby” Frankham, 45, was accused of attacking his former brother-in-law with a baseball bat. He was charged with attempted murder and “wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm,” the newspaper reported.
 
Frankham is listed on BoxRec.com as having fought four times in 1987, winning thrice and losing once. More famously, he helped train Brad Pitt for his roles in “Fight Club” and “Snatch.”

10.  Eight Words I Never Expected to Hear From Jim Lampley’s Mouth : “A graphic demonstration of true, honest, man love.”
 
Lampley was speaking of a tearful embrace between Miguel Cotto and his father, Miguel Cotto Sr. But it sounded like a more delicate retelling of eight words infamously issued by Mike Tyson: “I can sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating.”

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com