Boxing’s ‘mecca’ fitting farewell to Cotto
NEW YORK Miguel Cotto is a boxing icon in Puerto Rico. In New York City, too.
On Saturday night, the most popular boxer of his generation from the Caribbean island that has produced so many champions will finish off his terrific career at Madison Square Garden with — what else? — a title fight.
Cotto has fought nine times in what New Yorkers like to call “the mecca of boxing” and every one of those bouts was a main event. He has won the night before the Puerto Rico Day parade in Manhattan, when thousands of his fans who attended the fight then celebrated the holiday.
He has won in Yankee Stadium, at Barclays Center and the Hammerstein Ballroom. Indeed, Cotto has fought 11 times in Puerto Rico and 12 times within the five boroughs of New York.
So when he bids farewell to the ring at age 37 by defending his WBO super-welterweight crown against Sadam Ali, the setting will be appropriate.
“It’s been a pleasure for me to try to entertain you guys for 17 years,” Cotto said. “I have done my best at every opportunity for the benefit of my family. They mean everything to me and I am so proud of them and they are so proud of me.”
Cotto has something of an extended Big Apple family because of his popularity in New York. He’s almost as much of a fixture at the Garden as the Rangers and Knicks.
“Saturday will be a bittersweet day for us at the Garden,” MSG executive vice-president Joel Fisher said. “We’ve have a great relationship with Miguel that dates back to 2005.
“Miguel is what makes the Garden what it is as the ‘mecca of boxing.’ It makes us happy that Miguel is going out on his own terms.”
Cotto is 41-5 with 33 knockouts, but don’t let the five defeats throw you. He has lost to the likes of Canelo Alvarez, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito.
Cotto has owned six world belts. The first came in 2004, when Ali was 15.