The 32 year-old, who lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Austin Trout in his previous couple of bouts, never gave Rodriguez the opportunity to get comfortable in the fight and pounced at every opportunity before forcing referee Frank Santore Jr. to step in at the beginning of the third.
Rodriguez, 33, was rocked badly at the end of the second by a combination and sensing the end, Cotto made his move in the very next round to finish off the Dominican and move on to bigger bouts in the future, one of which could be against Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez.
Puerto Rican Cotto, who has teamed up with legendary trainer Freddie Roach in a bid to reinvigorate his ailing career, looked his powerful self once again and proved that his recent poor form was well and truly behind him.
In chief support, lightweight Terence Crawford dominated previously unbeaten Andrey Klimov over ten rounds to score a 100-90 win on all three cards and move to 22-0, whilst featherweight Jayson Velez climbed off the canvas to out-point Dat Nguyen 98-91, 96-93 (twice).
