Miguel Cotto punished Antonio Margarito at Madison Square Garden for a 10th-round TKO when ringside doctors halted the tense but one-sided bout with Margarito peering through an eye swollen into little more than a slit. (For a complete recap, see A Score Settled.) Cotto, 37-2, landed whiplash lefts and rights from the outside almost at will and after only a couple of rounds, the right eye of Margarito began to look like roadkill.
Margarito, who slips to 38-8-0-1, applied defiant pressure from the moment the opening bell rang, but he walked into punch after punch. From time to time Cotto would lean over in front of Margarito and take grinding little short shots in close. It was a strange move, one that gave Margarito his only real chance to score, and he did?fairly often. But, for the most part, these punches did not appear to have much effect on Cotto.
Although Margarito had serious trouble with his right eye, the stoppage seemed a bit curious. Is it possible that the NYSAC knowingly allowed a compromised fighter?and by extension a compromised event?into Madison Square Garden on Saturday night? First of all, there were more doctors in the blue corner than in a repeat of E.R. If Margarito was really fit to compete, why this special medical phalanx keeping vigil over him? And if his eye had undergone ?beautiful surgery,? as had been claimed, then why did it fall apart in less than 8 minutes of action? On the other hand, it was a serious boxing injury, and the idea that the fight was stopped to protect Cotto is another absurd meme hardly worth sighing about. Protect him from what? Margarito barely landed a flush long-range shot the entire night. The scrapes and bruises Cotto suffered were from noogies and short-arm punches on the inside.
