Breaking down Miguel Cotto-Canelo Alvarez: a Puerto Rico-Mexico battle

A fight card with all the under card fights can be seen below, and the bouts can be watched on TV on HBO PPV, or online through live stream via the link below.

"I'm very happy, " said a smiling Alvarez in the ring. "Miguel's defense was unbelievable all night long". Nevertheless, by the third round, Alvarez started to land a few of his bigger punches and took control of the fight. After the fight Alvarez responded to a question about a possible showdown with Gennady Golovkin.

"I have respect for Golovkin, but if we do fight, it's going to be at my weight class. I'm the champion, I don't have to do what he wants". Canelo would be the only one to fight for the title, if Cotto won he would not defend or win the belt since it was stripped. He said, "We're going to let him rest and then we'll talk about it. Is he going to fight Triple-G?"

"It's an emotion I can't put into words", Alvarez said after the fight.

"Canelo is the man in boxing right now", his promoter said.

Meanwhile, former WBA and WBO super-bantamweight world champion Guillermo Rigondeaux returned to the ring after an 11-month absence with a unanimous points victory over Filipino Drian Francisco in a 10-round contest.

But they know each other well and have sparred together several times. The expected improvement in Miguel Cotto was never visible throughout the fight, though he continued facing him and giving the new champ tough times throughout the match.

For Alvarez, meanwhile, a lot of opportunity has opened up but Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya wants his fighter to take it easy first.

Cotto rushed out of the ring upon hearing the decision and failed to show up for the post-fight news conference because he was shocked with the loss.

Alvarez, 25, is 46-1-1, Cotto, 35, is 40-5. "Fans will enjoy a real fight, another classic battle in the Puerto Rico vs. Mexico rivalry".

A victory over Cotto would erase any lingering doubts about just how good he is and uphold the honor of Mexico.

But this may be a hard job to do since Cotto has been under the tutorship of Freddie Roach, who also coaches Manny Pacquiao. "It was a competitive fight". The punch stats reflected that: Canelo was credited with landing 155 of his 484 punches (32%) while Cotto hit Canelo with 129 of the 629 punches he threw (21%), according to CompuBox. Alvarez was credited with throwing more power punches, landing 118 of them to 75 for Cotto.

Alvarez, who was more aggressive than usual, was able to dominate most of the rounds with his heavy punches and uppercuts. Most were on their feet in the final round when the two went toe-to-toe in the early moments of the round.