Cotto takes on Clottey tonight

NEW YORK (AP) — Joshua Clottey is willing to do just about anything for a good fight.

It’s the reason his career has taken him from the dusty streets of western Africa to the small fighting halls of England, to the out-of-the-way casinos that serve as a launching pad to stardom in the United States, and finally to the so-called Mecca of boxing.

Yet when he steps between the ropes at Madison Square Garden tonight to challenge WBO welterweight champ Miguel Cotto, he’ll do so as a former champion himself — one that never once defended his IBF title.

He had to give that up, too, for a more lucrative payday.

“If I hold the IBF, I fight maybe five times before I get these [big fights],” Clottey said, referring to the parade of unknowns that the sanctioning body sought to pit him against. “I wasn’t going to do that, so I had to vacate the belt. It’s business.”

Clottey’s most notable fights have come against Shamone Alvarez and Zab Judah, mostly because he’s been ducked by some of the toughest in his division. He’s never been in a fight of this magnitude, in a setting that will be this set against him.

A member of Ghana’s “Ga” tribe, from which came many of the sport’s great fighters, Clottey now makes his home in the Bronx. But on the eve of the national Puerto Rican Day parade, his small band of followers will almost certainly feel like outcasts in an arena that promises to be filled to the brim with flag-waiving Puertorriquenos.

About 800,000 New York residents have Puerto Rican roots, and they’ve come out in droves four times previous on what has become one of Cotto’s most anticipated dates.

“You hear the crowd shout,” Clottey said, pausing. “You hear them shout for their person, so sometimes you wait for the one that is not for them.”

By that, he means the shouts that will come when Clottey lands his own punishing shots.

Clottey (35-2, 20 KOs) promises to be among the most aggressive and difficult matchups that the popular Cotto (33-1, 27 KOs) will have ever faced. He’s of similar build to Antonio Margarito, whose now questionable victory over Cotto is the only blemish against him, and his reach is much longer.