Canelo Alvarez defeats Miguel Cotto by unanimous decision

Canelo Alvarez made a case for himself as boxing’s next superstar after winning a unanimous decision over Miguel Cotto and win a piece of the middleweight title in Las Vegas.

And in doing so, Alvarez becomes first Mexican to win junior middleweight AND middleweight titles and set up the possibility of a megafight with Gennady Golovkin, the middleweight champion who was watching at ringside.

Alvarez won the WBC version of the title that Cotto vacated days earlier for not paying sanctioning fees. The fight was for a 160-pound title, though it was fought at a catch weight of 155 pounds.

And Alvarez, whose only loss came to Floyd Mayweather Jr., took it to Cotto early and hard — winning rounds with big right hands and uppercuts starting from the opening bell. Cotto tried to box and had his moments, but Alvarez was clearly ahead as the Mandalay Bay casino crowd stood on its feet as both fighters traded punches in the final rounds.

As the rivalry matchup between the Puerto Rican and Mexican idols went on, Alvarez began landing more of his punches as he patiently stalked Cotto around the ring.

Cotto boxed well at times and landed flurries of punches, but his didn’t seem to have nearly the same power as those thrown by Alvarez.

In the final rounds, Alvarez caught Cotto with a series of punches that seemed to shake him some though he was never down and never appeared in real trouble.

Bruh. pic.twitter.com/mL3hLyWf6W #CottoCanelo

— Idk (@JValentineNYC) November 22, 2015

Alvarez was a 3-1 favorite coming into the bout, largely because he is 10 years younger than Cotto and a bigger puncher. 

And although the ages didn’t seem to make a difference, the ringside judges were surely influenced by the much harder punches that the red-headed Alvarez landed. 

Alvarez won by scores of 117-11, 119-109 and 118-110. The Associated Press had him ahead 116-112. Cotto was credited with throwing 629 punches to 484 for Alvarez, but Alvarez landed 155 to 129 for Cotto.

I'm sensing a rematch.