Cotto batters Zab into defeat

By Gomez

Miguel retained his WBA 147lb Welterweight title last night in a fight that had cuts, knockdowns, point deductions and drama in abundance.

Miguel, with the lion's share of the crowd in the Madison Square Garden made up of Puerto Rican's suppoerting him, took the fight to Judah from the opening bell.

During the course round 1, with both boxers giving a good account of themselves, an uppercut from Judah stiffened Cotto for a second before Cotto's instincts kicked-in and he proceeded to launch a vicious retaliation - which culminated in a 'disputed' low blow on the Brooklyn native.

During the first round interval, the 'low blow' seemed pretty innocent and not as low as some would have first believed including the referee.

Later on, with both fighters have success, another blow was deemed low by the referee and subsequently Cotto was deducted a point.

Here on in, Cotto started to move the through the gears and launch vicious assualt after vicious assault on Judah.

Yoel Judah constantly yelled at his son "You gotta punch more!!" displeased with the work rate of Zab; "Everytime you open up - your hurting him!" - which was true, he WAS hurting Cotto but not enough to peturb him.

Rounds 4,5 and 6 were more of the same, with Cotto bossing the fight and Zab trying to fight in spurts. Cotto occaisionlly switching to southpaw in attempt to stop zab circling him.

Round 7 it would seem Cotto had a little rest and gave Zab some distance and at times was effective with the jab. Unfortunately he didn't capitalise on his opportunity and from round 8 Cotto assumed command again.

At one point, a slight head clash cut Cotto above the eye which worried him for a moment - this injury was in addition to the nasty split lip Zab gave him with his signature uppercut. Judah, has a cut over his right eye which was caused by a left hook at first then worsened with a clash of heads.

As the round went on, the left hook of Cotto was swelling Zab's eye quite bad and Zab was dabbing at it and blinking heavily.

The 10th round was another assault from Cotto and Zab was in deep water and had to take a count mid-point to reclaim his senses.

Zab finished the round with a splendid combination and the crowd willed him on the produce something in the next round - he stated the 11th bravely enough, but Cotto went straight to work sensing that Zab was spent and after launching an astonishingly fast 5-punch combination on Judah, the brooklyn fighter was sent sprawling to the deck with a combination of pain and tiredness.

Shortly after raising to beat the count, the crowd sensed that perhaps Judah's corner would throw in the towel - but following another attack from Cotto, Judah tried to run and tiredly jump out of the way at which point the referee stopped the fight.

Cotto is now 30 wins, no losses with 25 KO's - Judah slips to 5 losses on his 41 fight career which is arguably finished at the championship level.


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