On this day, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito fought for the first time on pay-per-view in a fight better known as "The Battle." The fight which took place on July 26, 2008, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada, was for the WBA welterweight world title and was Cotto's fifth defense of his WBA world title. The bout also played up the rivalry between Mexico and Puerto Rico making it a huge success at the box office.
The fight ended in an eleventh-round technical knockout victory for Margarito, as his high work rate eventually broke down Miguel Cotto. Despite, Cotto starting strong it was the brute force of Margarito that won the bout. The bout famously ended with Cotto taking a knee and his corner throwing in the towel.
According to punch stats, Cotto had outlanded Margarito up until the point of the stoppage landing 280 punches as opposed to Margarito who landed 267 punches. That said, Margarito was quite a bit busier as he threw 987 punches as opposed to Cotto who threw 655 punches. Most impressive was Margarito threw 647 power punches nearly equally the amount of the punches Cotto had thrown in the fight.
The bout was considered one of the best of the year - and made Margarito into a massive star and boogeyman in the sport of boxing.
Yet a black cloud of controversy would later surround Margarito and his iconic performance. Prior to his fight against Shane Mosley, it was discovered that Margarito had illegal hand wraps, as a foreign object was found in his gloves. Margarito lost his boxing license and major questions came up over the validity of the win. The two would rematch, and Cotto would win the rematch. As this fight that is a classic also lives in a bit of infamy as some can't separate what they would later learn about Margarito.
