Miguel Cotto (born October 29, 1980) is a professional boxer from Puerto Rico. A native of Caguas, he shares, coincidentally, his birthday with another famous Puerto Rican boxer: Wilfredo Gomez. His brother, Jose Miguel Cotto, is also a professional boxer whom many think is destined to become a world champion. Jose Miguel is undefeated in 23 bouts.

Cotto was taken as a little kid to the famous Bairoa Gym in Caguas, where Juan Carazo and Alberto Mercado also trained. There, he was able to develop into a top amateur fighter who won several international competitions and represented Puerto Rico at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. After being eliminated from those games in the first classificatory round, Cotto decided to turn professional.

As a professional, Cotto has a record of 23-0 with 19 knockout wins. He has been able to beat some strong competition, such as former world title challenger John Brown (by a 10 round decision, at the Oscar De La Hoya-Fernando Vargas fight undercard) and former world champion Cesar Cobrita Soto , by a knockout in round 11.

In 2001, Cotto suffered a dangerous injury that threatened his boxing career: As he was driving to the gymnasium at 5 am in the morning one day, he apparently fell asleep and had an accident, breaking his arm and requiring hospitalization.

On September 13, 2003, Cotto beat former title challenger Demetrio Ceballos by a knockout in round seven at Las Vegas. With this, he was ranked number one by the WBA in his division, which is lead, as of 2004, by Kostya Tszyu

Cotto himself began 2004 by beating Sammy Sosa's cousin, the former world title challenger Victoriano Sosa , by a knockout in round four. This was after a mishap filled previous week to the fight, which included Cotto having to wait for four hours for his luggage bags to arrive (after a 2am local time arrival) at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, and almost being removed from the Mandalay Bay Hotel , where the fight was held at, by a security guard who thought he was an unaccompanied minor.

On April 8 of 2004, he defeated the former world title challenger, Lovemore Ndou , over twelve rounds, by the unanimous scores of 117-111, and 115-113 (twice), once again, in Las Vegas.

On the early morning hours of June 9 of that year, Cotto and his family were involved in another car accident, this time with his wife as driver.: driving from Aguas Buenas to Caguas on a darkened road after picking up their children, their car skid off the road and landed upside down. According to police reports, she saw a black bag on the road. Fearing the bag might contain a dead body or anything else, she avoided it but lost control of the car, leading to the accident. Neither the driver or the passengers involved in the accident were hurt, and Cotto was able to fly to New York the next day, where he would take part in a series of promotional activities with fellow boxer and friend, Ivan Calderon

Cotto met most observer's expectations three months after the accident, becoming a world champion by knocking out WBO world Jr. Welterweight champion Kelson Pinto in six rounds on September 11, at the Jose Miguel Agrelot coliseum in San Juan.

On December 11, he retained the title for the first time, beating former world champion Randall Bailey by a sixth round knockout, as part of the Vitali Klitschko-Danny Williams undercard in Las Vegas.

Eleven days later, on December 22, the Puerto Rican boxing commission named Cotto Puerto Rico's fighter of the year for 2004.

On February 26, 2005, Cotto made his second succesful title defense by knocking out former world champion Demarcus Corley in the fifth round at the Ruben Rodriguez coliseum in Bayamon (see: Cotto vs. Corley).

Just a few days after retaining the crown versus Corley, Cotto received another personal blow, when his stablemate and friend, former 2004 Olympian Joseph Serrano, was shot to the head upon leaving the Bairoa gym. Serrano has (so far) survived the shot, he is in critical but stable condition at a local hospital.

Also see

• List of famous Puerto Ricans