Video: Miguel Cotto Dominates Yoshihiro Kamegai, Wins Another World Title

Though it may be a country that’s small in size, Puerto Rico has produced some of greatest boxers to have ever lived. Carlos Ortiz, Wilfred Benitez, Edwin Rosario, Felix Trinidad and countless other have dominated the sort and won world titles. Miguel Cotto picked up the torch from Trinidad many years ago and he continues to do so and he added another notch to his Hall of Fame career Saturday night.

While the overwhelming majority of the sports world had its eyes on the massive Floyd Mayweather Jr. versus Conor McGregor in Las Vegas, Cotto took to the ring in the shadows of the mega fight to capture another world title. Cotto took on Japan’s Yoshihiro Kamegai at StubHub Center in Carson, California, and the HBO-televised contest was exciting from start to finish.

Kamegai (27-4-2, 24 KOs) charged right at Cotto to begin the duel and he rarely took a backward step. The pressure never took Cotto off his game, who countered his adversary beautifully with power shots to the head and body. Cotto (41-4, 33 KOs) snapped Kamegai’s head with a vicious right hook in the fifth and a blistering combo in the 10th, but the shots that would have knocked down a normal man didn’t stop him.

Kamegai went for broke in the championship rounds but Cotto backed off and boxed conservatively, though his accuracy never wavered. In the end, Cotto won a lopsided unanimous decision via tallies of 120-108, 119-109 and 118-110 to capture the vacant WBO junior middleweight championship.