Cotto knocks out Gomez, remains perfects
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April 13, 2008 - ATLANTIC CITY (TICKER) —Miguel Cotto continues to punish all comers who get in his way.

Cotto retained his WBA welterweight title at Boardwalk Hall on Saturday by stopping Mexican challenger Alfonso Gomez with a fifth-round technical knockout.

Cotto (32-0, 26 KOs) knocked Gomez down for the third time with 1:05 left in round five with a hard jab to the head and continued to pummel the challenger until the bell rang.

“I wanted to work and do it the right way,” Cotto said. “I am prepared for anyone, especially (Antonio) Margarito.”

Margarito knocked out Kermit Cintron in the sixth round earlier in the night to capture the IBF welterweight title.

The boxing community expects Cotto and Margarito to square off sometime in late July.

“Antonio is a champion and so am I, and it should make for a very good fight,” Cotto said.

Cotto battered Gomez into submission, prompting ringside physician Mark Schaber to tell referee Randy Newman before the start of the sixth round to stop the fight, giving the Caguas, Puerto Rico native his fourth defense of the WBA welterweight belt.

“The doctor said I couldn’t see out of my right eye,” Gomez said. “That’s why they stopped the fight.”

The 27-year-old champion began pounding on Gomez (18-4-2) from the outset.

Cotto dropped Gomez with 48 seconds left in the second round, and delivered a left hook to the 27-year-old Gomez’s solar plexus at the end of round three to take complete control of the bout.

“You always worry before you go into a fight,” said Evangelista Cotto, the champion’s trainer and uncle. “But we knew we had the superior fighter. That was a real beating in there.”

Gomez was beaten up again in the fourth as Cotto connected on 61 of 94 punches in that round.

In the earlier championship bout, Margarito did similar damage to Cintron, pummeling him into submission with head and body shots throughout their fight.

“They promised me Cotto and they’d better deliver,” Margarito said.

It marked the second time in his career that Margarito (36-5, 26 KOs) has won a welterweight crown, with both victories coming against Cintron (29-2).

In April 2005, Margarito knocked out Cintron in the fifth round for the WBO belt, handing the former champion the first and only other loss of his career.

After overpowering Cintron from rounds two through five, Margarito delivered two head shots in the sixth before a left to the sternum dropped the Puerto Rican with 1:03 left in the round.

“My hands were up high and he hit me with an uppercut and I couldn’t breathe,” Cintron said. “I should have tried to box more and stayed on the outside, but I wanted to prove something.”