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HBO PPV Recap

"Firepower"

Miguel Cotto vs. Manny Pacquiao

 

November 14, 2009

MGM Grand-Las Vegas, Nevada

 

 

 

This event is a sellout doing a gate of and there have been several closed circuit locations opened up in the greater Las Vegas area where seats to see the event are $50 each.

 

 

 

1. WBC Continental Americas Welterweight (147 pounds) 10-Round Championship Match:

Alfonso Gomez (20-4-2, 10 KO's, pounds) vs Jesus Soto-Karass (24-3-3, 16 KO's)

 

 

This title is currently vacant. It was last held by Orlando Lora, who vacated the belt to move up in weight and win another meaningless trinket, the International Boxing Association Junior Middleweight Championship.

 

Gomez had a modest amateur boxing career, in which he went 80-10.

 

In Gomez' last high profile match, he received a savage beating from Miguel Cotto. The first boxing recap that appeared on wrestlingobserver.com featured Vic Darchinyan beating Victor Burgos into a several month long coma. (Burgos survived, and a full recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2008/8/5/preview-of-vic-darchinyan-vs-dimitri-kirilov.html) The beating Darchinyan gave Burgos that night appeared insignificant compared to the brutality Cotto unleashed on Gomez on April 12, 2008 at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The referee for that match was the seemingly sadistic Randy Neumann. Neumann was so negligent in not stopping the final match of the late-Arturo Gatti's career, a knockout loss to Gomez on May 14, 2007, at Boardwalk Hall, that then New Jersey State Athletic Commissioner Larry Hazzard had to jump in the ring to stop the contest. (A recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2009/7/12/recap-of-the-late-arturo-gatti-vs-alfonso-gomez.html As an aside, Hazzard was fired as the New Jersey State Athletic Commissioner after filling that post for years and helping to establish the current unified rules of MMA for caring too much about competitor safety.) Gomez entered the match with Cotto having never been knocked down in his professional career. Cotto changed that by scoring a questionable knockdown with 44 seconds to go in round 2. It was already apparent that Gomez was not in Cotto's league. There was a huge disparity in speed and Cotto was treating this as a sparring session. Cotto kept switching from his normal orthodox to the southpaw stance, simply to work on different things in actual competition. With less then 10 seconds to go in round 3, Cotto threw a series of left hands that should have knocked Gomez out. It probably should have been a knockout. Gomez stood and was leaning on the ropes when the referee reached his count of 8. The referee never made Gomez walk to him and the bell sounded for the round to end. Since, Gomez was already in his own corner, his people only needed to put his stool under him and he never needed to walk. Therefore, a badly injured Gomez was inappropriately allowed to continue. With 1 minute to go in round 4, Gomez was in very bad shape and it was clear his corner needed to throw in the towel. At this point, Jim Lampley, who was the play-by-play broadcaster for that event and tonight's event, pointed out that of the last 8 opponents who had faced Cotto prior to Gomez, 3 of them had been beaten into retirement. In round 4, Gomez landed 12 total punches, while Cotto landed 60 total punches. The commentators then began to openly question if this match would have been stopped were Hazzard still the commissioner in New Jersey. Gomez' promoter was thinking of asking to have Neumann replaced in this match, so this very thing did not happen, and clearly erred in not doing so. With 1:13 to go in round 5, a left jab sent Gomez stumbling backwards to the canvas. It did not appear to be that hard of a jab, but Gomez had been so badly beaten at this point it did not take much for Cotto to knock him down anymore. However, the apparently reckless and cruel Neumann applied his count and sent Gomez back out to be bludgeoned. Gomez' trainer was so negligent in not throwing in the towel at this point, it was disgraceful. Finally, after round 5 the doctor stopped the match giving Cotto the win via technical knockout at 3:00 of round 5. It would be nearly 13 months before Gomez would have another official boxing match following the brutal pummeling he received in this match. A full recap of this disturbing match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2009/11/10/recap-of-miguel-cotto-vs-alfonso-gomez.html

 

Gomez' last match was a knockout victory 1:01 into round 1 over Raul Munoz on August 29, 2009 at the Blaisdell Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. Munoz badly missed weight for the match. It had to become a catch weight match as Munoz weighed 156.25 pounds, while Gomez weighed 152.25 pounds. Normally in a situation like that, the match is canceled. The only reason a match with that weight disparity would be allowed to go on is because it is a huge mismatch. That is what this was. Munoz was entering the match 3-10-1, with 7 losses coming by way of knockout and another loss coming by way of disqualification. This was only Gomez' second match back since the knockout loss to Cotto, both of which have been contested over 147 pounds.

 

Gomez is unranked by The Ring magazine and ranked by boxrec.com as the number 27 boxer in the world at 147 pounds.

 

Soto (Soto-Karass prefers to be called Soto) started his professional boxing career at 18-years old with a round 1 technical knockout victory over Edgar Inzunza on June 29, 2001. He quickly relocated to the United States to advance his boxing career and there his career was beset by terrible management. The very green Soto was matched up with very good opposition at a point in his career in which he was not ready. Therefore, in 2004 through mid 2005 Soto went 0-3-1. All 3 of those losses were to undefeated boxers, one of whom was Yuri Foreman who will be competing for a 154-pound title in the next match.

 

After signing with Bob Arum's Top Rank Promotions, Soto began to quickly rebuild his career. A major step on this rebuilding process was Soto winning an impressive 10-round unanimous decision on Versus over Juan Buendia on November 15, 2007 at the Sovereign Center in Reading, Pennsylvania. Soto scored a knockdown in round 2 in an all action match. In the end, Soto landed 523 total punches. That was among the top 5 most punches ever landed in a 10-round match tracked by CompuBox. A full recap of that match can be found here: http://www.number1contender.net/the-latest/2009/11/11/recap-of-jesus-soto-karass-vs-juan-buendia.html

 

Soto's last match was a 10-round unanimous decision victory over Edvan Dos Santos Barros on August 29, 2009 at Quick Trip Ballpark in Grand Prairie, Texas. The match was simply designed to keep Soto busy and have him get some rounds in during live competition. Dos Santos Barros presented little danger to Soto going 2-4 in his last 6 matches and was proven to be very durable having gone to a decision in 7 of his last 8 matches. Soto had not competed in over 6 months when he defeated Carson Jones via 10-round unanimous decision on February 6, 2009 at the Maywood Activity Center in Maywood, California.

 

Soto is unranked by The Ring and ranked by boxrec.com as the number 14 boxer in the world at 147 pounds.

 

At 27-years old, Soto is 2 years younger then the 29-year-old Gomez. Both boxers will employ the orthodox stance.

 

The unified rules of boxing will be in effect for this event. Also, limited instant replay will be available for all matches on this card. The official judges keeping score of this match from ringside are Eric Cheek, Patricia Morse Jarmon and C. J. Ross. The referee is Vic Drakulich. Harold Lederman will be HBO's unofficial scorekeeper for this event.

The final outcome is that the match was stopped on cuts due to an accidental clash of heads sending the match to a technical decision at 2:14 of round 6. Here the judges have scored the match: 58-54, 57-55, 57-55, all for the winner by unanimous technical decision and new WBC Continental Americas Welterweight Champion, Alfonso Gomez. The difference ended up being that Soto was docked a point for low blows in rounds 3 and 4. The win moves Gomez to 21-4-2 with 10 wins coming by way of knockout.

Gomez' next match is scheduled as a 10-round title defense against Jose Luis Castillo on March 13, 2010 on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey PPV at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Over the next few days, we hope to post some of the other research we did for the Pacquiao-Miguel Cotto PPV that was never recapped due to an incompetent cable company.