ESPN Boxing

There was nothing not to like about the fight and kudos to Showtime for helping make it happen. The first round was nothing but blazing action and the rest of the fight was also highly entertaining. Quintana, 30, fighting his more heralded Puerto Rican countryman, was a virtual unknown before a June upset of Joel "Love Child" Julio. And although he came up short against Cotto, Quintana covered himself in glory with the way he fought. The mere fact that he got to his feet after one of the most savage body shots we have ever seen is a testament to his heart. He got up from a second knockdown in the fifth round, too, before the fight was properly stopped after the round.

There's no reason Quintana can't rebound from the loss. Surely, fans will want to see him again after this performance. Of course, Quintana would have rather won because if he had, he probably would have vacated the title in order to face Shane Mosley for a serious payday in February. We're told that a deal had been agreed to for Quintana to forgo a mandatory fight with Oktay Urkal for the Mosley match.

The weight gain seemed to help Cotto, who had a lot of energy and was throwing bombs. He's going to be even better at 147 pounds than he was at 140. Next, he'll face Urkal, who stepped aside to allow the Quintana match to happen. They could fight in late February or March, but after Cotto beats Urkal (which he will), it should be nothing but big fights for Cotto, perhaps even a showdown with Top Rank stablemate and fellow welterweight titlist Antonio Margarito, who won in the co-feature. We're just so excited about potential big Cotto fights, we can hardly contain it. The one question about Cotto's future is this: Will Showtime try to keep him (it does have a position on his next fight) or will HBO, which mistakenly passed on this card, realize the error of its ways and pull out the checkbook?

Margarito, coming off a 10-month layoff , started to come on at about the same time Clottey hurt his hand and slowly took over the fight, despite his own wrist injury. Margarito is like the little engine that could, and as long as he keeps grinding out the victories, eventually he'll get that big-time fight he wants so badly. He's obligated to fight mandatory contender Paul Williams next, which is a tough fight. But if Margarito, who has made seven title defenses, can get through it, he finally might reach the promised land. Obviously, we'd love to see him fight Miguel Cotto, who starred in the main event.

Wright, coming off his June draw with middleweight champ Jermain Taylor, was just too big for Quartey, a former welterweight champ who recently has been fighting at junior middleweight. His power was ineffective against Wright, who is bigger, stronger and a far superior technician. It was really the first time in Quartey's career that he was dominated; his other losses were in close fights with Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas and a bad decision against Vernon Forrest in August. But we don't blame Quartey for taking the fight -- he made $1 million. He'll be better served returning to junior middleweight, where he can compete with the best fighters.

Wright, fighting in his hometown for the first time since 1992, was trying to put the Taylor debacle behind him and his subsequent insane rejection of $5 million for a rematch. Wright won easily, scored two dubious knockdowns and threw more than 1,000 punches. It was a good performance from Wright, but one no one needed to see. Now, Wright is calling out De La Hoya (who co-promoted the fight). If De La Hoya beats Floyd Mayweather in May, it is conceivable the fight could happen. That would be worth watching.

Lacy might never return to his old form. Not only did Calzaghe physically torture him, but Lacy probably has spent the past nine months mentally tortured by the loss. If Lacy's problems are mental, they can be overcome. If they are physical, we could be looking at the next David Reid, who, like Lacy, was a highly touted American Olympian whose career was ruined early by a crushing loss [in Reid's case, to Felix Trinidad].

Lacy and Tyspko had met before, in a 2004 elimination fight. But it ended in the second round because Tsypko, of Ukraine, suffered a bad cut from an accidental head butt. In the rematch, there was another accidental head butt that opened a cut over Tsypko's eye, but it wasn't nearly as bad the one in 2004. Lacy, who said he hurt his shoulder in the second round, dominated the first few rounds before Tsypko found a groove. He badly rocked Lacy at the end of the eighth round and dominated the final four rounds to do enough, it seemed, to win.

Sturm was hoping a victory combined with a Castillejo win on the same card would lead to a rematch next year. However, Castillejo got knocked out, meaning Sturm now will get a shot against Castillejo's conqueror, Mariano Carrera.

We can live with the WBA wrongly believing that Brudov, of Russia, deserved a championship bout (of sorts) after beating two stiffs following a lopsided decision loss in January in a title bout against Virgil Hill. We can even live with the WBA deeming Pineda, a big hitter from Panama who was wiped out in one round in 2003 by then-titlist Wayne Braithwaite, worthy of a title match. That's all kid's stuff and expected from the sanctioning organizations.

However, in an era where sanctioning organizations make up their rules as they go along, do anything for money and destroy the sport piece by piece, we have a new undisputed champion of horrific moves. This one is the worst of all time, even worse than the WBO ranking a deceased fighter -- super middleweight Darrin Morris, who died in October 2000. (Morris remained ranked and even moved up the rankings in January 2001.) That's saying a lot, too, because the WBA, after all, created a "super champion" policy that led to having two champions in one division. When one of its champions unifies belts, it "elevates" the unified title holder to "super champion" and sanctions a "regular" title fight in an effort to score two sanction fees in the same division. So while it's bad enough that the WBA has crowned two champions in some divisions, this fight marks the first time it has crowned three champions in one division.

Before we puke, try to follow the so-called logic: O'Neil Bell (the only real cruiserweight world champion by virtue of his January knockout of Jean-Marc Mormeck in their undisputed title fight) is the WBA's "super champion." When he beat Mormeck, the organization invoked its "super champion" policy and sanctioned the January Hill-Brudov fight for the "regular" title. Hill won, giving the WBA two cruiserweight champions. But then Hill was granted an exception to his mandatory obligation in order to face rival Henry Maske in Germany in March.

That means neither Bell nor Hill will have fought since January, and heaven forbid the WBA go without a sanction fee in the cruiserweight division for so long. Therefore, in an unprecedented move, the WBA approved Brudov and Pineda to fight for the "interim regular title" (can't believe this phrase is in print). With this move, the WBA shoots ahead of the IBF in the race for worst sanctioning organization. Congrats. Now, someone please pass the barf bag and keep the sharp objects away from us.

Although Bradley won by a large margin on all three scorecards, this fight seemed a lot closer. Even if Bradley was winning most of the rounds, they were competitive. The fight ended prematurely, however, when an accidental head butt opened a cut over Rangel's right eye and referee Raul Caiz stopped the action fight and sent it to the scorecards with Rangel unable to continue.

If Bradley -- whose bid to make the 2004 U.S. Olympic team ended in the U.S. Western Trials in a loss to eventual Olympian Vanes Martirosyan -- is the prospect Shaw brags about him being, then this fight should serve Bradley well as an excellent learning experience.