Sunday, June 06, 2010
Cotto finishes off fearless Foreman in 9th round
Yuri Foreman may have lost his WBA junior middleweight championship to Miguel Cotto, but he gained a huge measure of respect for his courage last night in a wild main event as boxing returned to Yankee Stadium.
The greats who had fought in the famed baseball park in Bronx — Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Muhammad Ali — would have been proud of Foreman for trying to tough out a freak knee injury in the seventh round that gave him virtually no chance to win.
Foreman, the Brooklyn-based rabbinical student by way of Israel, slipped in the seventh while moving side-to-side, twisting his right knee that was already wrapped in a brace. Robbed of his movement, the light-punching Foreman was a sitting duck for Cotto who hammered the defending champion in the eighth and into the ninth before referee Arthur Mercante Jr. stopped the fight 42 seconds into the round.
Cotto, a champion at junior welterweight and welterweight, adds a junior middleweight title to his resume, while Foreman lost for the first time in 29 fights.
“I was making side to side movement and it just gave out,” Foreman said. “It was a lot of pain; very sharp pain. I couldn’t really do a lot of movement. But I’m a world champion. We need to fight.”
The stoppage came after a wild eighth round when Foreman’s wife, Leyla Leidecker, began screaming from her ring side seat to stop the fight. A few seconds later, Foreman’s trainer, Joe Grier, threw a towel into the ring and everyone thought the fight was over, everyone except referee Arthur Mercante Jr.
Mercante, whose late father worked the Ali-Norton fight in 1976, cleared the ring and asked Foreman if he wanted to continue. Foreman said yes, and the fight continued until the end of the round.
“The towel came in at the heat of the battle,” Mercante said. “There was no need to stop the fight. They were in the middle of a good fight, a great fight. The people came to see a good fight. I think I did the right thing to let it continue.”
Most in a crowd of 20,272 cheered the continuation of the bout. Foreman tried to defend himself, but Cotto was like a predator sensing wounded prey. Foreman’s knee gave out twice more during the bout, but it was a body shot in the ninth that ended the fight.
“When I saw the trainer throw in the towel, I thought the fight was stopped,” Cotto said. “When he first went down in my mind I thought I was winning the fight.”
Emanuel Steward, working Cotto’s corner for the first time, thought the fight should have been stopped when the towel was thrown in.
“I was surprised at what happened,” he said. “I thought the corner stopped the fight. There were a lot of bad decisions going on there.”
Cotto (35-2, 28 KOs) had planned to drop back down to 147 pounds, but now owns a 154-pound title.
“We have to wait to see what’s better staying at 154 or going down to 147,” Cotto said. “I’m always ready for the big fights.”
Foreman, the first Orthodox Jew to win a world title in more than 70 years, entered the ring to the sound of a Shofar, but looked tight when the opening bell rang.
Foreman bounced on his toes, but was constantly rocked back by a Cotto jab, something the Puerto Rican wanted to establish early. Wearing dark trucks with white pinstripes, Cotto set the tone for the bout, patiently looking for openings against his constantly moving target.
The targets became great once the target stopped moving.
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/boxing/fearless_foreman_falls_in_th_ndhDtDZb0RcVHWXjPGIXNP
The greats who had fought in the famed baseball park in Bronx — Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Muhammad Ali — would have been proud of Foreman for trying to tough out a freak knee injury in the seventh round that gave him virtually no chance to win.
Foreman, the Brooklyn-based rabbinical student by way of Israel, slipped in the seventh while moving side-to-side, twisting his right knee that was already wrapped in a brace. Robbed of his movement, the light-punching Foreman was a sitting duck for Cotto who hammered the defending champion in the eighth and into the ninth before referee Arthur Mercante Jr. stopped the fight 42 seconds into the round.
Cotto, a champion at junior welterweight and welterweight, adds a junior middleweight title to his resume, while Foreman lost for the first time in 29 fights.
“I was making side to side movement and it just gave out,” Foreman said. “It was a lot of pain; very sharp pain. I couldn’t really do a lot of movement. But I’m a world champion. We need to fight.”
The stoppage came after a wild eighth round when Foreman’s wife, Leyla Leidecker, began screaming from her ring side seat to stop the fight. A few seconds later, Foreman’s trainer, Joe Grier, threw a towel into the ring and everyone thought the fight was over, everyone except referee Arthur Mercante Jr.
Mercante, whose late father worked the Ali-Norton fight in 1976, cleared the ring and asked Foreman if he wanted to continue. Foreman said yes, and the fight continued until the end of the round.
“The towel came in at the heat of the battle,” Mercante said. “There was no need to stop the fight. They were in the middle of a good fight, a great fight. The people came to see a good fight. I think I did the right thing to let it continue.”
Most in a crowd of 20,272 cheered the continuation of the bout. Foreman tried to defend himself, but Cotto was like a predator sensing wounded prey. Foreman’s knee gave out twice more during the bout, but it was a body shot in the ninth that ended the fight.
“When I saw the trainer throw in the towel, I thought the fight was stopped,” Cotto said. “When he first went down in my mind I thought I was winning the fight.”
Emanuel Steward, working Cotto’s corner for the first time, thought the fight should have been stopped when the towel was thrown in.
“I was surprised at what happened,” he said. “I thought the corner stopped the fight. There were a lot of bad decisions going on there.”
Cotto (35-2, 28 KOs) had planned to drop back down to 147 pounds, but now owns a 154-pound title.
“We have to wait to see what’s better staying at 154 or going down to 147,” Cotto said. “I’m always ready for the big fights.”
Foreman, the first Orthodox Jew to win a world title in more than 70 years, entered the ring to the sound of a Shofar, but looked tight when the opening bell rang.
Foreman bounced on his toes, but was constantly rocked back by a Cotto jab, something the Puerto Rican wanted to establish early. Wearing dark trucks with white pinstripes, Cotto set the tone for the bout, patiently looking for openings against his constantly moving target.
The targets became great once the target stopped moving.
http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/boxing/fearless_foreman_falls_in_th_ndhDtDZb0RcVHWXjPGIXNP
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