Question the decision, not Cotto's heart

You can say what you want about the decision in last week's Miguel Cotto-Joshua Clottey fight. Some folks thought Clottey won; more people I have encountered since the fight thought Cotto won. I had it 116-111 (like one of the official judges) for Cotto, and have no doubt in my mind that he was the rightful winner of the fight, which I watched closely from the middle of Row 1, just a few feet from the ring apron. When I got home, I rewatched the fight twice on my DVR, and there was one round in the middle of the fight that I scored for Cotto that I might consider changing to a Clottey round. But whatever you think of the decision, one thing I think we can all agree on is that Cotto showed immense heart in a fight against an excellent opponent. That was a bad, bad cut over Cotto's left eye, incurred from an accidental head butt in the third round. We've seen it happen too often in recent fights: A guy suffers a cut and finds a way out in order to walk away with a technical decision or a no-contest. Yeah, I'm talking to you, Robert Guerrero and Hasim Rahman. But not Cotto. He easily could have said he wasn't able to see after the fourth round, when it became an official fight, and gone to scorecards for a technical decision. He led 39-36 on all three cards after four rounds. Had Cotto waited until after the fifth, he still would have been ahead 48-46 on all three cards. After the sixth, it was 58-55 across the board. But Cotto, despite blood flowing freely throughout, toughed it out like a fighter is supposed to -- and deserves everyone's respect for it. I've covered 17 of Cotto's 35 fights from ringside and seen the rest on video. He never has given anything less than 100 percent or done anything but fight like a professional is supposed to, no matter what adversity he has faced. People seem to forget that sometimes.