Cotto stops Foreman in dramatic middleweight bout

NEW YORK - Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto stopped a game but injured Yuri Foreman in the ninth round Saturday to seize Foreman’s World Boxing Association junior middleweight title at the new Yankee Stadium.

The ending was suitably dramatic for boxing’s return to the home of baseball’s Yankees, more than three decades after the original Yankee Stadium hosted its last bout.

Cotto landed a left hook to the body that sent an already limping Foreman down and referee Arthur Mercante called a halt at 42 seconds of the ninth round. Foreman’s right knee, on which he was already wearing a brace, had buckled in the seventh round and he fell.

The Brooklyn-based Israeli resumed, but his mobility was clearly compromised, allowing Cotto to land punches almost at will.

In the eighth round someone near Foreman’s corner threw in a towel, but Mercante asked Foreman if he wanted to go on, cleared the ring and continued.

Foreman’s gutsy effort ended in the next round, however, as Cotto handed him his first defeat in 29 fights. Cotto, fighting in the 154-pound division for the first time, improved to 35-2 with 28 knockouts.

AFP