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that an ultra-popular, vastly talented, ultra-quick, New York City-slick and warrior-tough opponent by the name of Paulie Malignaggi. Like Cotto, he was 25. While Cotto came into the fight riding a six-fight knockout streak, Malignaggi had blazed his way to a 21-0 (6 KOs) record, many of them in and around the spotlights of New York City. Against Cotto, Malignaggi would be looking for his first world title. The fight was fast-paced and action- packed for the entire 12 rounds. The thudding punching power of Cotto and the quicker hands of Malignaggi were highlighted. Much of the ringside talk was that if Malignaggi possessed Cotto’s punching power, Cotto would have been a knockout victim. We also marveled at Malignaggi’s ability to take a punch. Despite the fact that a Cotto left hook dropped Malignaggi in the second round, the same punch landed many more times on Malignaggi’s jaw in the remainder of the fight and the Brooklynite remained upright and always fought back even harder. By the middle rounds, a mouse grew under Malignaggi’s left eye and his right cheek became puffy. Yet the injuries didn’t seem to slow him in the least. Even as Cotto dug down deep in the bout’s final three rounds, searching for a knockout, Malignaggi fought back just as hard, doing all he could to win. When the bell rang to end the fight, the crowd exploded in applause for the action they’d just witnessed. Cotto’s fans didn’t just applaud their hero. They applauded Malignaggi as well. Malignaggi’s fans did the same. They loved their guy and were inspired by his courage, but they respected the immense talent and offensive output they had seen from Cotto. The judges agreed. Peter Trematerra and Glenn Feldman each had it 116- 111 for Cotto. Don Trella also had Cotto, 115-112. “It was a very festive crowd,” recalled Trematerra. “The crowd yelled
each time either one of them landed a good punch – which was every round.” “As the rounds went on, you could see this was a very competitive fight,” said Trella. “Just when it looked like Cotto was starting to pull away, back would come Malignaggi. His hand speed was something to marvel at.” “The fight was an interesting one to score,” Feldman told The Ring. “It was back and forth all the way. I recall wondering if those facial injuries would worsen and cause the fight to be stopped, but Malignaggi showed tremendous heart, bit down on his mouthpiece and kept firing back. He showed tons of heart, and the crowd appreciated that.” The chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, Ron Scott Stevens, recalls having mixed reactions to what he saw. “I was impressed by the conditioning, skill level and determination of both guys that night,” he told The Ring, “but I was worried about Malignaggi’s facial injuries.” After the fight, when an ambulance had taken Malignaggi to a local hospital to be examined, Stevens took a cab there out of concern. “I waited around for a few hours before I was told he was fine. I was relieved when I heard the news.” At the post-fight press conference, Cotto was not without some lumps, bumps and bruises himself. “He was the toughest fight I ever had,” the still-unbeaten junior welterweight titleholder told the media. “He was even faster than I thought and much stronger than I thought.” For Malignaggi, thoughts of this fight bring a smile to his still- youthful face. “For me, this was the fight which allowed me to enter the level of the sport and business that all fighters strive to achieve to get to,” he told The Ring. “For the majority of the next decade after this fight, I was a fighter who was rather consistently in the ratings of The Ring – top 10 in the world. Cotto
was the best fighter I ever fought. He was complete in so many ways. It was a grueling and physically and mentally painful fight. Yet I will always be grateful to have experienced it, because I learned a lot about my own inner toughness. The experience made me a better fighter going forward, and in part it was a reason why I did eventually achieve championship success in my boxing career. “People assume my jaw broke, but it did not break. My orbital bone broke in Round 2 on the knockdown I suffered. I wound up needing surgery to repair it. To this day, my right orbital bone has titanium in it.” Cotto went on to have a stellar career. He fought eight more times at Madison Square Garden over the next 11 years. He also won titles in the welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight divisions. He retired at the age of 37 after dropping a 12-round decision to Sadam Ali in Madison Square Garden on December 2, 2017. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2022. Today, he is a successful businessman in Puerto Rico and the Caribbean, running his own company, Miguel Cotto Promotions. Following his loss to Cotto, Malignaggi eventually won not just the IBF junior welterweight title, but the WBA welterweight title as well. Like Cotto, Malignaggi retired after a loss in 2017. Today, he is a commentator and analyst for ProBox TV and BYB Extreme Fighting Series (now BKB Bare Knuckle Boxing). He has climbed in the ring twice as a bare-knuckle boxer. He lost a decision in his first bout (2019) and won a decision in his most recent bout (October 2025). He also hosts his own “Paulie TV” YouTube channel. He hasn’t been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame yet. He will. When that day comes, he will surely thank Miguel Cotto for bringing out the best in him on June 10, 2006, in Madison Square Garden.
Paulie Malignaggi proved himself in defeat against a prime Miguel Cotto.
BRINGING OUT THE BEST: COTTO VS. MALIGNAGGI By Randy Gordon
however, Cotto pounded Abdullaev and stopped him in the ninth round. Back in the ring just three months after avenging his Olympic loss, Cotto beat 28-0 Ricardo Torres at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, rising from the first knockdown of his career to stop the Colombian slugger in the seventh round. Six months after that, Cotto gave the hard-hitting Gianluca Branco a shot at his title and stopped him in eight one- sided rounds. Then it was time to head back to New York City for another daytime appearance in the Puerto Rican Day Parade – after another nighttime appearance in front of his army of fans at MSG. But Cotto’s opponent was more than an undefeated challenger. He was an ultra-popular localite. Make
I t was June 10, 2006, the eve of the Puerto Rican Day Parade in New York City. I was among the 14,369 spectators who were at Madison Square Garden to watch boxing that night. I sat in a fourth-row “working press” seat. The evening’s main event was a 12-round junior welterweight title fight between an undefeated champion and an undefeated challenger. The champion was WBO titleholder
Miguel Cotto, a 25-year-old Puerto Rican who was fighting for the third time in New York City and the second in MSG’s main arena. The first had been a year earlier – also on the day before the Puerto Rican Day Parade – when Cotto defended his title against Muhammad Abdullaev. In 2000, at the Summer Olympics in Australia, Abdullaev – the eventual gold medalist – had decisioned Cotto 17-7 in the first round of competition. In The Garden,
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