MANNY PACQUIAO TKO12 MIGUEL COTTO

RINGSIDE REPORT:

Now it has been confirmed. Manny Pacquiao is truly a phenomenon. He not only defeated Miguel Cotto in Saturday’s Firepower welterweight title fight in Las Vegas, he destroyed him.

Pacquiao had demonstrated his dominance long before referee Kenny Bayless intervened after 55 seconds of the final round, and I was amazed that Cotto was able to survive for as long as he did, because by the seventh the eagerly awaited contest had become a mismatch.

Some very good judges of boxing, people I respect in the industry, had liked Cotto’s chances in the fight. Yet, as the middle rounds arrived, Pacquiao was outclassing him with speed, power and movement.

There were many who thought that the supposedly superior strength of the naturally bigger Cotto might take effect by the later rounds. Instead, it was Pacquiao who looked the bigger, stronger fighter — he made Cotto look like the man who was moving up in weight.

The win makes Pacquiao a unique world champion at seven weights, starting in the flyweight division and, while I’m not sure that fighters should be anointed with the appellation of “great” until after their careers are over, I do think that Pacquiao can be compared with the fabulous Henry Armstrong, who held world titles at three weights simultaneously in the 1930s.

Cotto fought well and he fought bravely in the early rounds, jabbing back Pacquiao’s head, letting both hands go, and he played his part in making the third round so exciting that it evoked memories of Hagler-Hearns as he came back from a knockdown to land some impressive shots, pulling the round back to 10-9 on two judges’ cards instead of the 10-8 usually awarded to a boxer who scores a knockdown.

When Cotto went down again in the fourth, though, the fight was essentially over as far as being truly competitive. Cotto made a great effort in the fifth, a rousing round even though all three judges gave it to Pacquaio, but it was now obvious that he could not win. Cotto had landed his best punches and his opponent had taken them with no sign of serious discomposure, but Pacquiao’s hammering lefts and rights from his southpaw stance were doing obvious damage.

Not only was Cotto dropped twice in the fight but his legs dipped several times, his face was beginning to take on a misshapen look, and by the ninth round blood was coming from his nose and mouth.

A splendid fighting machine had been ruined before our eyes and for the last several rounds it was just a matter of whether Cotto would be able to hear the final bell — but it was not to be.

I would have liked to have seen Cotto pulled out sooner, but this was the year’s most important fight and I can understand why referee Bayless and the ringside doctor wanted to give the proud Puerto Rican every chance to have the moral victory of lasting the limit.

After the ninth round, Pacquiao seemed reluctant to inflict any more hurt on his bloodied, battered and beaten opponent, and Cotto, astonishingly, found the reserves to reassemble his boxing technique into a semblance of effectiveness in the 10th round, which he deservedly won on two judges’ cards as the Filipino superstar moved in without firing.

Cotto’s courage was of the highest order — he could have retired from the fight with dignity at least three rounds earlier. It was disturbing, though, to see him in a distressed condition, just trying to fend off a much stronger man. Referee Bayless was, however, poised to intervene at the first hint of Cotto being subjected to anything like a sustained attack. When Pacquiao — after two rounds of stalking — suddenly went after Cotto again with a two-handed attack in the 12th, like a jungle cat springing from a tree, it gave Bayless the moment he had been seeking to step in and wave an end to the proceedings. The merciful finish came not a moment too soon.

I will be taking a deeper look at all aspects of the fight in the next issue of Boxing Monthly, but I can tell you that as I left the MGM Grand Garden Arena on Saturday night it was with the feeling that I had been privileged to have seen one of the great performances in modern boxing history.