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Last night at the Coliseo Roberto Clemente in San Juan, Puerto Rico, WBA Welterweight Champion Miguel Cotto stopped two time European Champion and world title challenger Oktay Urkal in an ugly, awkward affair. On the undercard, a hard punching contest took place between Edison Miranda and Alan Green at 162 lb and both men hit the canvas before the tenth round came to a close and Miranda was declared the winner by wide points decision.
In the main event, Cotto bossed Urkal in the early rounds as the champion was sinking deep left and right hand body shots on the clearly overpowered German. But by the middle rounds, the highly experienced challenger’s refusal to bend, and liberal use of the head, caused Cotto’s confidence to dip somewhat.
Urkal crowded and grabbed Cotto inside, using angles to make the Puerto Rican star miss with much of his offense, and a cut was opened over Cotto’s left eye with a clash of heads. Urkal lost a point in the seventh round after continuing to use his head, despite repeated warnings from referee Luis Pabon.
As Cotto continued to march forward and catch the shifty German with the occasional big uppercut, Urkal won a few rounds by landing big right hands and hard body hooks on the slightly unfocused champion.
The fracas continued with the awkward Urkal doing everything he could to distract Cotto but Miguel began to get it together again somewhat in the later rounds before Urkal again had a point taken away in the eleventh round.
As the referee was instructing the ringside judges to take a point from Urkal, the German’s trainer Uli Wegner suddenly pulled his fighter out of the contest at 1:01 of the eleventh round. This was a shocking development as Urkal was in no trouble whatsoever and was clearly able to continue.
Afterward, Wegner cited what he felt were Cotto’s illegal punches to Urkal’s back going unaddressed while his man was losing points for use of the head. Additionally, Wegner felt that the WBA practice of announcing the ongoing scoring of the ringside judges between rounds made it clear that Urkal had no chance of winning the fight.
Cotto moves to 29-0 (24) and will face former two weight world champion Zab Judah in June. Urkal drops to 38-4 (12).
On the undercard, former middleweight world title challenger Edison Miranda hammered reluctant super middle Alan Green for the first half of the slow paced fight until Green timed a perfect left hook and Miranda hit the canvas in the seventh round.
But Green, perhaps cautious due to Miranda’s tremendous punching power, declined to open up and take advantage of his sudden opportunity and by the ninth, the bout finally became the war each man had promised.
The last two rounds were all Miranda as the Colombian bomber rocked his rival with booming power shots and by the tenth and final round, Green was tackling Miranda’s legs in an effort to try and keep from the canvas.
But it was to no avail as Miranda rained down punishment and the reeling Green was on the floor twice. Only the bell to end the tenth round saved the previously undefeated prospect from being knocked cold by Miranda.
Miranda goes to 28-1 (24) but after another display of magnificent punching power may have difficulty enticing any world champions to share the ring. Green drops to 23-1 (16).
