Miguel Cotto

Miguel Cotto gave thousands of his fans exactly what they hoped for on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day parade. Overcoming a cut from an accidental head butt in the third round and several brutal rounds with Joshua Clottey, Cotto fought to a narrow split decision Saturday night in a packed Madison Square Garden, retaining his World Boxing Organization welterweight title. With blood pouring down his face, Cotto, the pride of Caguas and the roughly 800,000 New Yorkers who trace their roots to Puerto Rico, threw his arms up at the end of a close bout that left the two battered.

Miguel Cotto edged Joshua Clottey by split decision to retain his WBO welterweight title on Saturday. Patrick Gutierrez was covering all the action from Madison Square Garden. Get his take on all the bouts. After a series of mostly entertaining undercard bouts, we are now awaiting the main event between Cotto and Clottey. At stake is Cotto's WBO title. (Clottey vacated his IBF title in order to take this fight.) The Garden is packed with pro-Cotto supporters and a montage of his greatest hits shown on the arena scoreboard earlier whipped the crowd into a frenzy.

Meanwhile, a small faction of Clottey supporters just walked around the concourse waving the flag from Clottey's home country of Ghana. To the surprise of no one, they were soundly booed. Either they are very brave or no one told them where they were.World junior welterweight champ Manny Pacquiao just got a thunderous ovation as he was introduced. Former champions Iran Barkley, Winky Wright and Hashim Rahman are also in attendance.