Canelo Alvarez is the new middleweight champion of the world after pounding his way to a unanimous decision victory against Miguel Cotto in a hard-fought battle Saturday night at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.
Alvarez and Cotto delivered an entertaining fight that had the crowd cheering throughout as Alvarez stalked Cotto, who knew his best chance to win was to box, box and box.
Cotto, 35, gave it a tremendous effort, staying on his toes and moving nicely throughout the fight, but the judges clearly liked Alvarez’s brute strength more, awarding him the fight on surprisingly wide scores of 119-109, 118-110 and 117-111.
ESPN.com had the fight 115-113 for Alvarez, a former unified junior middleweight titleholder who won a world title in his second weight class.
“It’s an emotion I can’t put into words,” Alvarez said through a translator as the sold-out crowd of 11,274 cheered. “I’m very happy, and much respect to Miguel Cotto. I will always respect him and he’s a great champion, but now it’s my era.
“I was fully prepared for what Cotto was going to do in the ring, whether that was take a defense stance or be the aggressor.”
The victory will go down as one of the best for Mexico in its rich and legendary boxing rivalry with Puerto Rico and should launch Alvarez — at 25 already Mexico’s most popular fighter — to even greater stardom.
“It’s a great victory for me; not just for me, but for all of my country, for all my people, and especially for my team,” Alvarez said. “I have a great trainer [Eddy Reynoso]. He brought me here from nothing. I didn’t even know what a jab was. That I’m at this level shows the quality of my trainer.”
Source: ESPN