Last night live at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and airing on HBO, Miguel Cotto took care of business, knocking out Australia’s Daniel Geale in the fourth round to retain his WBC World Middleweight title. A great deal was made about Cotto’s request for a catchweight of 157 lbs.
Cotto weighed under 154 lbs despite the catchweight, so he is a smaller man, but from the start his skill and speed edge allowed him to take the fight right at Geale, who had no answers. Cotto sent Geale to the canvas early in the fourth, and after that he closed in for the kill. Geale went down a second time, and after that the referee stopped it mercifully. Cotto was the heavy betting favorite heading into this one, and he is now going to be looking at a showdown with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in a fight that is sure to generate big interest.
Over at the StubHub Center in California and on the “Premier Boxing Champions” broadcast on NBC, Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero was facing veteran Aron Martinez in a bout that was intended to feature Guerrero and put him back on the winning track. Guerrero was dropped early in the fight and he managed to escape with a controversial split decision after ten rounds. Guerrero was a massive favorite at the books, so if you bet Martinez as the underdog you almost certainly disagree with the results. For Guerrero, it was not the stand out performance he was hoping for, and since he is still (2-2) in his last four fights, it is unclear how relevant Guerrero still might be at Welterweight.
The other feature fight at the StubHub saw Argentina’s Jesus Marcelo Cuellar KO veteran Vic Darchinyan to likely signal the end of relevance for Darchinyan. Darchinyan is now 39 years old and he has lost five of his last eight. His last three losses have seen him get stopped, and as a former world champion in smaller weight classes, he is probably fighting out of his premium weight as a Featherweight. For Cuellar, who is just 28 years old, he adds a quality name to his resume, and he remains poised for bigger fights down the line. Cuellar had held the interim version of the WBA world title for several defenses, but with this win he wipes the interim status away and is the fully vetted WBA World Champion.
