The pummelling Miguel Cotto took from Antonio Margarito in 2008 and the subsequent controversy over the latter's hand wraps against Shane Mosley make for a charged confrontation
There are rematches and there are rescheduled calamities. The bout between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night threatens to be such an occasion.
When they first fought, three years ago in Las Vegas, Margarito hit Cotto below the belt in the third round. The Puerto Rican was not hurt and his Mexican opponent touched gloves with him in the spirit of sportsmanship that is a heartwarming feature of boxing. It had every appearance of a Latino classic, hard fought but clean.
Eight rounds later, Cotto surrendered on one knee in a neutral corner, his face mashed to a crimson pulp by those same gloves.
There has not been a day since that July night in 2008 at the MGM Grand when Cotto has not wondered if Margarito had administered that beating with loaded gloves ? and his suspicions were heightened by a now infamous incident in the moments before Margarito's defence of the title against Shane Mosley in Los Angeles the following January.
Mosley's diligent trainer, Nazim Richardson, noted while checking Margarito's hand wraps that there was "bricked up gauze that had blood stains on it already and they had a piece of plaster over that". The wraps were removed and replaced, and Mosley, enlivened by anger, gave the Mexican the sort of thrashing Margarito had handed out to Cotto.
Margarito lost his title and his licence to box for a year. No state but Texas would accommodate him. His trainer, Javier Capetillo, was considered more culpable and barred indefinitely from working anywhere in the United States.
But the story took another twist. In 24/7, the HBO promotional series used to promote Cotto-Margarito II, Cotto last week showed the presenter Max Kellerman a photo of Margarito celebrating in the ring after their first fight ? and Margarito's left-hand wrap, with a blood-stained section, is missing a chunk of gauze ? just as it had before the Mosley fight.
Margarito has insisted that the first fight was "a fair fight. I beat him fair and square". But the emotional levels will be red-lining in New York on Saturday.
And, even though they are shells of themselves, the place is sold out because Puerto Rican and Mexican fans expect more than a fight for Cotto's WBA light-middleweight title. They expect a war and in all probability, they will get one.
Margarito is a boxing animal. He has long, lean levers and dead eyes, a fighter of no emotion. Absorbing punishment has become incidental for him in the course of 46 fights stretching back to 1994, during which time he has won and lost the world welterweight title a couple of times and, in his most recent fights, has taken comprehensive hidings from Mosley and Manny Pacquiao.
Few thought he would fight again after Pacquiao belted him for 12 rounds a year ago, damaging the orbital bone in the Mexican's right eye. Only in the past week, after a late medical appeal, has the New York State Athletic Commission sanctioned this fight after earlier threatening to ban Margarito.
Cotto, too, has felt the force of Pacquiao's fists, lasting into the 12th round before the referee rescued him on the ropes. He claimed later he wanted to quit at the end of the 11th, but his cornermen would not let him.
If there is reluctance in him against Margarito, we may be in for a horrible reprise of their first fight, a return in which both are lesser operators. Margarito looks much older than his stated 33 years; Cotto is 31, slower and more hittable than when one of the sport's rising stars. They are damaged goods ? but proud men. And boxing deserves a good, clean fight from them ? because there will probably not be many more to come.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/dec/02/miguel-cotto-antonio-margarito
No comments:
Post a Comment