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Puerto Rican welterweight superstar Miguel Angel Cotto and Youngstown, Ohio’s middleweight champion Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik both erased memories of losing their most recent fights by recording TKO victories this past Saturday night in a unique, two-site Pay Per view event.

Cotto defeated the UK’s Michael Jennings via 5th Round TKO at Madison Square Garden to capture the WBO welterweight strap recently vacated by the multi-divisional Paul Williams. Pavlik retained his WBO and WBC belts by defeating Mexican brawler and WBC #1 ranked contender Marco Antonio Rubio via TKO when Rubio failed to answer the call of the bell leading into Round 10.

Cotto showed no signs of having lost any confidence after suffering his first loss to Antonio Margarito last July. He and Jennings got a feel for each other in Round 1, as Cotto dictated most of the action. Things heated up in round 2 when Cotto became more aggressive, keeping the timid Jennings in a constant back-pedal. Big action came in the third when Cotto forced Jennings down to a knee twice in the round behind an onslaught of left hooks. Jennings stayed upright in the fourth but did little to keep Cotto at bay. The end of the bout came in Round 5, when Jennings took yet another knee after absorbing a right to the head. Jennings made it up by a nine count, but the referee correctly elected to wave it off after observing Jennings’ face closely.

Back in the Rust Belt, Kelly Pavlik defended his WBC and WBO middleweight belts for the second time against Marco Antonio Rubio. Pavlik also retains the Ring Magazine middleweight belt with the victory. This was Pavlik’s first fight since dropping an overwhelming unanimous decision loss to first-ballot hall of fame shoo-in Bernard Hopkins in a light heavyweight bout last October on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City. Having personally been in attendance at the Pavlik-Hopkins fight, I could only help but to wonder whether or not Pavlik would be able to recover mentally from such a one-sided beating. Pavlik, like Cotto, exhibited no adverse effects. Kelly’s punches had a nice snap on them and he seemed to be far less sluggish fighting at 160 than he was at 170.

Heading into Saturday’s bout, Many believed Rubio would pose a much greater threat to The Ghost than his previous middleweight challenger, Gary Lockett. While Rubio was a much more respectable fighter than Lockett, the Mexican brawler still was not in the same class as Pavlik, as shown over the nine rounds of action. Pavlik began the fight by using quick footwork to keep Rubio trapped against the ropes, a tactic Pavlik employed throughout the fight. He also displayed a more diverse offensive attack, using several left hooks to attack Rubio from angles, something Pavlik’s trainer Jack Loew had discussed leading up to the fight. Pavlik continued to push the issue in Rounds 2 and 3, keeping Rubio on the defensive with a series of body shots. Rubio connected with a good three punch combo in Round 3 but it was not enough to win him the round.

Round 4 was relatively uneventful, as Rubio constantly retreated. Pavlik continued to pound the contender with hard rights behind single and double left jabs and thunderous body shots. Round 5 was a slugfest as Pavlik continued to press the action, but caught some hard shots from Rubio after becoming a bit careless in his pursuit. Rubio also connected with some strong combos in Round 6 as Pavlik began to slow down his pace. Pavlik regained control of the fight in Round 7 with crisp jabs and hammering rights.

Round 8 was a territorial battle inside the ring until Pavlik hit Rubio with right cross that nearly sent the challenger to the canvas. To his credit, Rubio battled on in light of having absorbed some brutal power shots. Pavlik appeared to stun Rubio at the start of the ninth with a left hook. The champion then proceeded to continue to work Rubio’s torso with a devastating body attack for the balance of the round.

Visibly hurt and mentally stymied, Rubio declined to come out for the tenth round, giving Pavlik a TKO victory.

In other notable action, undefeated middleweight fringe contender John Duddy defeated veteran Matt Vanda over 10 technically-sound rounds at Madison Square Garden. Duddy, who has a new trainer and has fought like a street brawler in the past, showed better patience and better defense this time around. The Derry Destroyer paced himself as well as he has in any previous fight, while Vanda did not throw enough punches early on to give him a chance to win many early rounds on the judges’ scorecards.

It has been speculated that Duddy may eventually face Pavlik later this year, probably at Madison Square Garden or Atlantic City.

Later this week, I’ll preview some upcoming fights as well as some of the potential matchups for Cotto, Pavlik and others in 2009.

Photos: Getty Images

Tags: Antonio Margarito, Bernard Hopkins, Gary Lockett, Jack Loew, John Duddy, Kelly Pavlik, Marco Antonio Rubio, Michael Jennings, Miguel Cotto, Paul Williams | This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 9:56 pm and is filed under Boxing, Cov's Corner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.