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WBA Welterweight Championship MatchMiguel Cotto vs. Oktay Urkal:

 

The Puerto Rican boxing commission is trying something new in this fight in publicly announcing the official judges score cards after rounds 4 and 8.  After 4 rounds all the judges and anyone watching have the fight scored 40-36 for Cotto.  Urkal is clearly here for a big paycheck ($375,000) and has pretty much said that and knows he has no chance.  At the age of 37 who can blame him for wanting a big day before a retirement he is already discussing.  Cotto is cut above the left eye by an accidental headbutt at the end of round 5, which Cotto also won easily.  The announcers are burying open scoring because now Cotto knows if the fight is stopped because of that cut he will win when the fight goes to the scorecards, so has no incentive to push the pace or protect the cut.  In round seven Urkal is deducted a meaningless point for leading with the head after having been warned twice before.  After 8 rounds the official scores are 77-74, 78-73, 80-71.  The fight is actually not as big a blowout as the scores indicate, and Cotto has definitely had to work.  At the end of round 10 Cotto picked Urkal up over his shoulder as Jim Lampley described it as in total frustration at the number of times there heads have come together in what almost became a "WWF move".  Lennox Lewis pointed out the move required a great deal of strength and Larry Merchant said it didn't look like it required that much strength.  Then early in round 11 the referee penalized  Urkal another point on a spurious headbutt infraction.  Then Urkal's trainer threw in the towel for no apparent reason before the fight could be resumed.  The headbutt call was curious at best as on at least that clinch there didn't appear to be a clash of heads.  The likely reason Urkal's trainer threw in the towel is because of the open scoring which the HBO commentators are just burying again.  Urkal wasn't hurt and was in no danger at all.  It's believed that Urkal's corner just thought their fighter was being treated unfairly be the referee and had no chance of winning so they stopped it.    Urkal's trainer post fight said he felt that Cotto was hitting Urkal in the back illegally and the referee was allowing it and combining that with open scoring he decided to end the fight.  Urkal's trainer was blaming the referee and saying Urkal had no chance of winning with that referee.  From my perspective the punches didn't look dirty and the broadcasters on HBO are giving the claims zero discussion post fight and just moving on to discussing Cotto vs. Zab Judah in June and Cotto's importance to Puerto Rico.