Cosme Rivera Wins Twelve Round Decision Against Antonio Pitalua

In 1999, Pitalua won a unanimous 10-round decision against Rivera. More than decade later, the veteran former title challengers met again on Sept. 9 and battled to a split draw. It did not take another decade for them to meet in a third fight. Instead, they met in an immediate rematch of the draw in the headline fight on Telemundo and put on an entertaining rumble. Mexico's Rivera, 35, a former welterweight title challenger, evened the rivalry 1-1-1 with a hard-fought decision against Pitalua, 41, a native of Colombia living in Mexico and former two-time lightweight title challenger. Maybe we will see a fourth fight? Regardless, the third fight had plenty of action. Rivera, however, was landing good shots on Pitalua (what was with that hairdo?). Rivera raised swelling around Pitalua's left eye in the fourth round and had him bleeding from the nose by the seventh round. Although there was good action, it was clear by the later rounds that this was Rivera's fight to lose. Pitalua mounted a late-rounds rally when he had Rivera backing up in the 10th round and eating some shots, but it was too little, too late.

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