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Rumblings from the Shore

Funny, I don't hear any of the usual critics mocking Miguel Cotto's choice of opponents like pundits used to during Roy Jones' reign atop the sport and HBO pecking board. Seriously, if Alfonso Gomez hadn't been on the original Contender series, he would have had about as much chance making Saturday's main event as Angel David Gonzalez (see below).
I love Cotto, and you can't complain about a guy taking a gimme fight after taking on Zab Judah and Shane Mosley last year and then with a potential date with Antonio Margarito looming for July, but this was a main event that reminded me of Jones vs. Ricky Frazier. Gimmes are OK, but not this bad. Bob Arum should know better, and HBO should have longer memories. ...

I've never had the impression that Antonio Margarito was a jerk before Saturday night. First mocking Kermit Cintron at the press conference about Cintron's crying episode after their first fight, and then his unsportsmanlike behavior after Cintron went down in the sixth round Saturday. Makes me want to root for Cotto even more come July.
As for Margarito's performance against Cintron it was simply spectacular. He reminded me a lot of a prime Julio Cesar Chavez the way he kept coming forward, taking very good shots without so much as a shrug and the way he pounded away at Cintron's body.
This was as good as I've seen him, and with the Cotto fight looming three months away, I have that fight as even money right now. ...

My favorite fight of the night was no doubt the opener, a six-round unanimous decision for Paterson, N.J.'s Richard Pierson over Puerto Rico's Angel David Gonzalez in a middleweight bout between two guys that are unlikely to ever receive main event status on such a card. It was just an all-out brawl for the 27-year-old Pierson (7-1), who was the only fighter on the card even with close to a local connection. Gonzalez (6-5-1) is a tough nut too, who would give any early-in-his-career middleweight prospect quite a scrap.
That was about it as far as excitement on the undercard. Give credit to Top Rank for putting as many Puerto Rican fighters on the crowd as possible. With the large Cotto crowd early in the arena it created a lot of excitement for some off-TV fights that usually are fought in front of a lot of empty seats.
Personally, I would have like to have seen a little more of a Jersey, Philly, New York flavor to some of the bouts held in Atlantic City, but what can you do?
Junior featherweight Jesus Rojas (11-0, 9 KOs), who is a Cotto protege from Caguas, Puerto Rico completely dismanted veteran Andres Ledesma in the final prelim, with a fourth-round bludgeoning. Rojas was the best looking prospect on the card.