Farewell Miguel Cotto, a proud and classy Puerto Rican boxing idol who fully deserves his fantasy departure

This Saturday in the ancient Madison Square Garden ring, in a city he has owned for over a decade, Miguel Cotto will fight for the last time in the type of fantasy departure that very few boxers have ever enjoyed.

Cotto will be defending a world title belt against a man called Sadam Ali, a decent fighter with enough brains to understand his role in the last night of Cotto’s boxing career. It will be Cotto’s 47th fight, his 26th for a world title since turning professional in 2001 and his tenth at the sacred boxing hall.

The Puerto Rican idol empties the bordellos of Spanish Harlem each time he laces his gloves to fight at the midtown citadel, a place that becomes a swarming mass of utter devotion when Cotto walks to the ring. It is, at that moment, like no other venue in the world. On Saturday the flock will witness his last fight like joyful mourners at a bizarre wake: “I’m leaving on my terms,” Cotto insisted.

He could have wandered into a break of a year or two and picked a nice fat payday to finish his remarkable career, put himself in the Conor McGregor sweepstakes, and then, head bowed, tried to explain how he thought he could win a fight he lost. The modern business is rich with men that took the ugly route to their end, refusing to quit, not listening to friends, loved ones or their howling bodies.

However, Cotto has too much pride and class for a regrettable finale and remains a pure fighter, a man that many dearly departed sages admired and praised before they died. There is a list of open testimony, a rare collection in modern boxing, of old men talking wistfully of Cotto’s quality.

“He (Cotto) is relentless in the way (Marvin) Hagler was relentless, and he damages you in the same way Hagler damaged people,” said Manny Steward, arguably the last great coaching master. Steward was talking before the 2008 fight with Antonio Margarito, a fight that shocked the boxing world with its horror.

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Cotto, now 37, was in one of the bloodiest, nastiest and most controversial fights when he was left on his knee, broken and in despair in round eleven against Margarito. Cotto had been favourite in a fight that was considered the salvation of a sport increasingly at the mercy of too many boxers devoted to cash. Floyd Mayweather had retired without fighting Margarito or Cotto, many at the time said it was an unforgivable act: Cotto met Margarito and it was his first loss in 33 fights.

In the aftermath there were few answers to the questions, no clues to why the sickening beating had taken place, forcing Cotto to quit in tears and blood; the following year Margarito and his coach, Javier Capetillo, were exposed as cheats, men that loaded the bandages with a substance like Plaster of Paris, transforming the protective padding to lethal tools and then enjoying their illegal trade.

Margarito was forced to change his padded bandages during a routine inspection in his dressing room before losing to Shane Mosley in Los Angeles, and then had his licence revoked. The pair were lucky to escape prison and the disgrace gave Cotto something to finally apply to his soul to heal his wounds.

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In 2011 they met again, Cotto won and left Margarito with a permanently damaged right eye in a fight that was cruel. Margarito fighting again divided people, Margarito left legally blind in his right eye was ignored, accepted as a risk for his treachery. There is nothing polite about my business, never be tricked by Anthony Joshua’s smile or Amir Khan’s comic innocence in the Australia jungle.

Cotto kept fighting, winning and losing titles and gently adjusting his style to prolong his brilliant career. He did, finally, meet Mayweather and lost on points, one of just five defeats. There was also a loss to Manny Pacquiao, but there were great wins, more belts and glory.

There was the raw night in 2014 when he toppled the powerful middleweight world champion Sergio Martinez, dropping him three times in the opening round, at the Garden. It was his last night at the Garden and it felt like the final party for the Cotto faithful.

This Saturday they will be back, draped in Puerto Rican flags, screaming and crying as Cotto performs the last dance of a true ring genius in a place he calls his special home. He is going on his terms, a rare departure in the boxing game, and he will be missed by the sport and, rather selfishly, by those of us fortunate enough to have been present when he slipped through the ropes to fight.