The long awaited rematch between Miguel Cotto (35-2, 28 KO’s) and Antonio Margarito (38-7, 27 KO’s) will be happening on July 16th, according to Steve Kim at Maxboxing.com. This is provided that Cotto wins his fight next month against Ricardo Mayorga, and that’s a big if, because Cotto is a fighter that can be beaten on any given night if things aren’t working out for him.
The Cotto vs. Margarito II fight will also depend on Margarito’s healing from his facial injuries he sustained in his last fight against Manny Pacquiao last November. Margarito suffered a fractured right orbital bone, among the other facial injuries he suffered.
The fracture required surgery and he’s been healing all these months. He took a lot of head shot in the mostly one-sided fight and he probably would have been wise to have quit around the halfway point in the fight rather than continue to absorb a one-sided pounding from Pacquiao for 12 rounds.
Margarito stopped Cotto three years ago in an 11th round TKO in 2008. Cotto took a real beating in that fight, which left his face looking like a terrible mask of blood when the bout was halted in the 11th. Cotto was cut over both eyes and his nose was fractured.
The thing of it is Cotto really wasn’t hit all that much in the fight until the 10th, when he ran out of gas from his constant movement and was hurt while up against the ropes. Cotto then took a couple of knees to escape punishment in the 11th and the fight was stopped. A lot of boxing fans think that Cotto hasn’t been the same fighter he once was since that fight. But by the same token, Margarito hasn’t looked nearly as good either. He was beaten in his very next fight by Shane Mosley in 2009.
Margarito came back from that loss to beat the unknown Roberto Garcia, a fringe contender, at junior middleweight in May 2010. Margarito looked like a shell of himself in that fight, struggling to beat a guy that he likely would have walked through previous to the Cotto fight. And in his last fight, Margarito was easily beaten by Pacquiao last November. Margarito looked slow and very average in that fight.
source: boxingnews24.com
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