Pavlik & Cotto Undercard Live Blog

Top Rank is off and running with its split-site pay-per-view featuring comeback fights for both Kelly Pavlik and Miguel Cotto. Charlie Steiner (who makes an early mistake) and Al Bernstein are on hand at Madison Square Garden to handle the first few televised fights. Nick Charles and Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini are at the Chevrolet Centre in Youngstown.

The first televised fight from MSG is a four round middleweight bout between Matt Korobov and Cory Jones. Originally from Russia, Korobov is 3-0 with 3 KOs in his young pro career. Jones is from Brooklyn and is 4-4.

Michael Buffer is doing the introductions in NYC and I believe Jimmy Lennon Jr. is in Youngstown.

In a cautious first round, the announcers explain that Jones' nickname, "Let Me Get That," comes from the words would-be robbers spoke to him while trying to stick him up. The crowd expresses some displeasure as barely any punches were thrown or landed in the first three minutes.

Korobov gets his left hand untracked a bit in the second round. He also shows off a nice jab and some quick right hooks when the two men close the distance.

The fans get a bit restless again thanks to the lack of action in the third. Korobov's corner tells him before the final round not to worry about the crowd or the KO and just win the fight. Finally Korobov connects with a sharp right hook with about ten seconds to go and Jones is down and out.

Korobov wins by KO at 2:59 of Round Four.

Bernardo Osuna interviews Cotto, who admits that he doesn't know too much about Michael Jennings but prepared as hard as he always does. He talks about resting up for the eight months since his loss to Antonio Margarito.

Cotto says the hand wrap issue and Shane Mosley's victory over Margarito both helped him psychologically. He also speaks briefly about his new tattoos and how he feels he's still among the elite as his weight.

Next on the card is popular Irish middleweight John Duddy taking on Matt Vanda. The heavily tattooed Vanda is 39-8 but has seven losses since 2006.

Duddy is 25-0 with 17 KOs. He resides in NYC and gets a big reaction from the fans at the Garden.

The two fighters are almost dead even in height, weight and reach. This one is scheduled for ten rounds.

Duddy establishes the jab early on and shows nice combination punching with both hands. He takes some jabs coming back but not much in the way of power punches from Vanda. Both men catch each other with counter shots with about 30 seconds to go in the second frame, momentarily making it more of a brawl.

The announcers discuss Duddy possibly moving down to 154 pounds, where he would be one of the stronger guys in the division. He's throwing more, landing more and landing at a higher percentage than Vanda through three rounds.

Duddy stays very calm through the fifth round, controlling the pace and distance of the fight with his jab and picking his spots for combos. He's also eluded some shots coming back, and that hasn't been true for most of his career.

It looks like Duddy may cruise, but Vanda lands a sharp left in the middle of the seventh round that wakes him up a bit. I haven't been scoring but I would not be surprised if Duddy is pitching a shutout right now.

After a brief spurt of offense by Vanda in the first part of Round Eight, Duddy regains control and is out-landing at about a 2:1 ratio. He comes forward behind several nice combinations in the ninth round, and only a KO can pull it out for Vanda now.

Uh-oh. Vanda lands a multi-punch combination and successfully turns the final round into a brawl. Duddy eats a straight right with a minute to go. Left hook by Vanda, but Duddy gets his feet under him and manages to fight fairly evenly to the finish.

We go to the judges' scorecards. The scores are 99-91 twice and 97-93, all to the winner by unanimous decision, John Duddy.

Posted by The Franchise