By: William Holmes

By the time the televised bouts started, Madison Square Garden was starting to fill up and the Puerto Rican and American national anthems were already played.

The non-televised undercard was filled with Puerto Rican boxers, and the Garden was packed with Puerto Rican fans ready to cheer on their island’s hero, Miguel Cotto. There was a lengthy delay between the last bout on the non-televised portion of the card and the first bout of the televised portion of the card.

Chris Fitzpatrick (15-2) was the first man to walk into the ring in his bout with Danny Jacobs (23-1) in the super middleweight division. Jacobs came out in a southpaw stance and looked to be in tremendous shape, but he appeared very hesitant to let go of his hands in the opening rounds. Fitzpatrick and Jacobs clashed heads in the third round and Fitzpatrick opened up a cut on top of his head. Jacobs unloaded several hard unanswered combinations in round five on Fitzpatrick and pummeled him from corner to corner. Fitzpatrick quit on his stool and refused to come out for round number six. Danny Jacobs continued his winning streak with a 5th round TKO.

Jacobs admitted afterwards that he started off slowly because his last fight only went one round and he felt he needed more work inside the ring.

The second bout of the night was between Jayson Velez (19-0) and Salvador Sanchez II (30-4-3) in the featherweight division. Sanchez looked like he was straight out of a 1970s adult film with his high striped socks and afro. He was, however, a punching bag tonight, as Velez dominated Sanchez from the opening bell till the fight was called off in the third round. Velez’s combinations really started to hurt Sanchez in the second round. A left uppercut followed by a left hook right cross combination sent Sanchez to the ground at the end of the second round.

Sanchez’s corner was visibly upset with his performance and they tried their best to urge him on in between the second and third round. However, another left hook dropped Sanchez in the beginning of the third round, and a hard right cross immediately after the knockdown sent Sanchez backwards towards the corner and caused the referee to stop the fight.

Jayson Velez remained undefeated with a 3rd round TKO at 0:38.

Prior to the start of the main event a ten count tribute was given to boxing legend Hector “Macho” Camacho.

Austin “No Doubt” Trout (25-0) was the first man to come out in the main event, and the pro Cotto crowd in Madison Square Garden was not shy in letting him know who they were rooting for in tonight’s WBA Super Welterweight Title Bout.

When Miguel Cotto (37-3) walked out, nearly everyone inside Madison Square Garden rose to their feet to cheer him on.

The crowd was hanging on nearly every punch that Cotto threw, but Trout was effective in staying on the outside and keeping Cotto at bay with his jab and lead right hook. When Cotto landed the crowd cheered in approval, but he did not connect with many punches of note. Trout was simply the more active fighter.

Trout caught Cotto with a hard straight left hand early on in round four, but also landed two low blows in the fight, once in round five and once in round nine. By round seven, Trout was becoming extremely effective with his jab, and he landed solid left uppercuts in rounds eight and eleven.

Cotto looked exhausted by round ten, and round eleven was by far Austin Trout’s best round of the night. He landed several hard combinations on Cotto in that round and Cotto’s face showed signs of bruising at the end of the fight.

It was a close fight, and a lot of the rounds could have been scored either way, but the judges scored it correctly and in favor of Austin Trout with scores of 117-111, 117-111, and 119-109.

The plans for Cotto vs. Alvarez have to be scrapped as Miguel Cotto was simply beaten by a younger and better fighter tonight. Cotto immediately went to his family afterwards in tears and embraced them. He stated that he will probably fight again, but he may want to consider dropping back down to the welterweight division because he’s a small junior middleweight.

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