Cotto dominates Martinez; Lee stops Jackson; Sonsona defeats Vazquez Jr

By Jeff Sorby - 06/07/2014 - Comments

YouTube video
Miguel Cotto (39-4, 32 KO’s) accomplished his goal in winning a fourth division world title in defeating a very, very old looking WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (51-3-2, 28 KO’s) in stopping him 6 seconds into the 10th round tonight to capture his WBC 160lb. title at Madison Square Garden, in New York.

Martinez was hurt in the opening minute of the fight by a powerful left hook from Cotto, and he never recovered from it. Cotto went on to knock a badly shaken Martinez 3 times in the 1st round, and a final time in the 9th in a 4-knockdown performance.

The fight was stopped at the start of the 10th round by Martinez’s trainer Pablo Sarmiento.

Martinez had been cut over his right eye in the 9th, and he looked like he was ready to be knocked out. Sarmiento did the only thing he could do in stopping it when he did, because Martinez’s knees didn’t look strong enough to for him to come back and score a knockout in the last three rounds of the fight. Martinez was hopelessly behind in the fight by that point and absolutely needed a knockout to get the win.

In the 9th, Cotto hit Martinez with a hard jab that caused his right glove to touch the canvas in order to keep from falling down. The referee then ruled it a knockdown.

After the fight, Cotto wouldn’t say what he plans on doing next. He said he wants to rest and talk to his trainer Freddie Roach about where to go from there. Roach and Bob Arum of Top Rank will likely try and steer Cotto towards the money fights against the likes of Floyd Mayweather Jr. or Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin would be out of the question, because he’s not old, he doesn’t have two bad knees, he’s not coming off of a long layoff, and he’s simply the best in the division.

In a less than thrilling co-feature fight, featherweight Marvin Sonsona (19-1-1, 15 KO’s) punched and clinched his way to a dull 10 round split decision victory Wilfredo Vazquez Jr (23-3-1, 19 KO’s) in their rematch. Sonsona clinched constantly but he also did enough to win most of the rounds against the much shorter and lighter looking Vazquez Jr. The judges’ scores were 96-92, 96-92 for Sonsona, and 96-92 for Vazquez Jr.

Sonsona looked like a light welterweight in the ring. He was huge compared to Vazquez Jr. In the 1st round, Sonsona knocked Vazquez Jr. down with a left to the body. Later in the fight, Sonsona lost a point for hitting on the break.

In one of the more exciting fights on the card, junior middleweight contender Javier Francisco Maciel (29-3, 20 KO’s) defeated Jorge Melendez (28-4-1, 26 KO’s) by a 10 round majority decision by the scores 94-94, 96-92, and 97-91. The rounds were close, but the main difference was the harder punches from Maciel. He knocked Melendez down with a right hand in the 6th. In the same round, Melendez lost a point for hitting low.

#6 WBC Andy Lee (33-2, 23 KO’s) climbed off the deck in the 1st round to come back and stop the faster, stronger and younger John Jackson (18-2, 15 KO’s) in the 5th round. Lee hit Jackson with a right hook that knocked him out and left him face down on the canvas. Lee was hurt in the 1st, and he took punishment in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th rounds. Things looked bad for the 29-year-old Lee going into the 5th, because he was getting really hammered by Jackson and he wasn’t taking the shots as well as some of Jackson’s other opponents. Had the fight gone on for much longer, it’s very likely that Jackson would have knocked Lee out, because the fight was heading in that direction.

The victory temporarily saves Lee’s career. Jackson is far from being one of the best fighters in the 154lb division, so it wasn’t a good sign that Lee was getting dominated so easily tonight.

Other boxing results on the card:

Felix Verdejo TKO 1 Engelberto Valenzuela
Jose “Wonder Boy” Lopez UD 8 Raul Hidalgo
Jose “Sniper” Pedraza TKO 1 Arturo Uruzquieta
Willie Nelson TKO 1 Darryl Cunningham
Jantony Ortiz KO 1 Elio David Ruiz