NEW YORK, (Reuters) – Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto  retained his World Boxing Organization welterweight title with  a gruelling split decision win over Joshua Clottey of Ghana at  Madison Square Garden on Saturday night. 
 
Judges Don Trella and John McKaie scored the bout for  Cotto, 116-111 and 115-112 respectively. Tom Miller scored the  bout 114-113 for former IBF champion Clottey. 
The Ghanaian, 35-3 (20 KOs), complained bitterly about the  decision. 

“I fought my heart out,” he said in a televised interview  after the fight. “I’m chasing the guy. He’s running. I’m  blocking the punches. So I don’t know what I have to do to win  the fight.”  

At times it appeared the contest would not last long enough  for the judges to play a role. 
 
Cotto knocked down Clottey with a stiff left hand at the  end of the first round, but the challenger recovered to take  the second, as both men sought to land left hooks and uppercuts  to body and head.

At the end of the third round, a clash of heads opened a  gash on Cotto’s left eyelid which bled profusely throughout the  fight, blocking the Puerto Rican’s vision and leaving him  vulnerable to Clottey’s powerful right hands.  
Clottey slipped and fell to the canvas during a clinch in  the fifth and appeared to hurt his knee. He writhed in apparent  pain before referee Arthur Mercante Jr. urged him to his feet.  

Pressing the advantage, Cotto, 34-1 (27 KOs), dominated the  sixth, pinning Clottey in a corner for over half the round, but  the Ghanaian rallied to dominate the next three rounds, landing  his right hands against the apparently tiring champion. 
 
By the end of the ninth, however, Cotto seemed to have  regained his confidence. 
He appeared to shade the tenth round on the strength of a  pair of powerful left hooks, and spent the final two rounds  circling his challenger, firing quick flurries and then moving  away before Clottey could respond.
  
“I just tried to keep my plan and forget about the cut,”  said Cotto. “I just tried to forget about the blood running  into my eye and make my people proud.”