M~~ Margarito did this to Miguel Cotto ~~
When Antonio Margarito beat the then undefeated
Miguel Cotto, most were blown away. Margarito took some hard shots
from Cotto, sometimes getting his head knocked around like a piñata, but he
still kept coming. The first sign of trouble for Cotto came in the 2nd
round, when Margarito hit him against the ropes, drawing blood from his nose.
What became more evident was the way Cotto's face looked
with each passing round. By the end of the fight Cotto’s face looked a mess; he
was bleeding from his nose, mouth and by the left cheekbone, below and above
his eye.
The punishment Cotto took in that fight is the
kind that could
change a fighter's career, and his life. In the 11th round Cotto took
a knee twice because of all the punishment being dealt by Margarito, before
uncle/trainer Evangelista Cotto stepped in to throw the towel. It was a
terrifying ending, with the broadcasting network showing Cotto’s bloody face,
and in the crowd Cotto’s wife holding one of their sons on her lap as they both
cried. This fight made Margarito look like he was Predator, Jason and Freddy
Krueger put together. He became an instant star. There was talk of him being
the next great Mexican fighter in the line of Salvador Sanchez and Julio Cesar
Chavez. The way tornadoes tear through towns, Margarito would tear through his
opponents. One of the most avoided fighters in boxing was now one of the most
dangerous.
In comes Shane Mosley, a fighter who had lost a
close but decisive fight against Cotto. After Shane's win over Mayorga, he asked
to take on Margarito, to the surprise of many. Most boxing experts felt that if
Shane had trouble with Cotto, taking on Margarito would be a hard pill to
swallow. Mosley was coming off the BALCO debacle, having admitted to
taking steroids and also freshly divorced from his then wife Jen. There was a
lot riding on Shane putting himself back in the mix as the top welterweight in
the division.
Larry Merchant stated during the telecast that an
illegal hard plastic shell had been found in Margarito's hand wraps. Jim
Lampley added, “It has been reported by some who saw it." That illegal
substance allegedly found in Margarito's hand wraps was wet and it was hardening.
Lampley went on to speak of a fight that happened nearly a hundred years ago,
between Jack Dempsey and Jess Willard, where Dempsey was said to have had loaded
gloves, the substance loading the gloves was called “plaster of Paris.”
The comment stuck out like a sore dumb. There was
also something different about Margarito's punches. They were not having the
same effect on Shane as they did on Cotto. Shane also did something that Cotto
didn’t do; he clinched to keep Margarito from punching. He worked Margarito's
body, slowly breaking him down and eventually knocking him down in the 7th
round and knocking him out in the 8th. Margarito went from looking
like a tornado to looking like a tumbleweed.
The controversy was not over. Again the whole
hand wrap issue was mentioned. Jim Lampley reported, “Before the fight, Nazim
Richardson, Shane Mosley’s trainer was in Antonio Margarito’s dressing room to
see his hands being wrapped and he pointed out to California Athletic Commission
officials that he saw something being put into the hand wrap, something which
was illegal and did not belong there. California Athletic Commission officials
confirmed that they found within Antonio’s Margarito hand wraps something that
they are calling a hard plastic shell and they removed it from the hand wraps.”
“Now... we all remember how those thudding blows
in the Las Vegas beat down of Miguel Cotto last July," said Lampley. "There
weren’t any thudding blows tonight. Did Margarito just cast a large shadow over
his giant victory over Cotto last summer?"
That dark shadow grew larger days after the news
broke out. First Margarito and his trainer were suspended and then issued a one
year revocation. The question surfaced whether they had done this before,
especially in his fight against Cotto. During their hearing the evidence was not
present. No testing to see what was in the hard substance, leaving much room for
rumors and speculation. As boxing fans, and in the interest of all concerned and
the integrity of the sport, don't you think we need to know? It's almost
like finding a gun but not knowing if it is loaded or not.
Other questions surfaced whether or not Cotto
could come back from such a devastating loss. The kind of loss that takes
something out of a fighter. One must consider that if Margarito's gloves were
loaded then Cotto can't be blamed for bending, not under those circumstances.
After all, who would one to fight someone wearing brass knuckles?
Weeks prior to his fight with Michael Jennings,
Cotto was frequently asked about the controversy surrounding Margarito .
Sometimes he would not answer, giving the indication that he was not concerned
about it. Other times he would express his anger. “All I know is that when
everybody gets their hands wrapped, we know what’s in them. Every boxer knows if
there is something different in their hands or not. And I think as a fighter,
you would know if you have anything in there or not,” said Cotto of Margarito's
claim that he did not know anything about what was in his hand wraps.
Cotto also told reporters in
Puerto Rico that he is “very angry with Top Rank,” adding that once his contract
is up he may no longer be with the company. Cotto also compared the Margarito-Capetillo
case to another loaded gloves case from 1983, which involved trainer Panama
Lewis and Luis Resto. Lewis had reportedly pulled about two ounces of padding
out of Resto’s gloves and loaded his wraps for a fight against Billy Collins Jr.
A fight with similarities, as Collins was undefeated like Cotto. By the
end of the fight Collins' face, like Cotto’s, was battered and bruised. It
was ironic that Resto was not considered a big puncher, yet Resto brutally beat
Collins that night.
From the beating he took
Collins suffered a torn iris and permanently blurred vision, ending his boxing
career. Suffering psychological depression from not being able to fight anymore
Collins began drinking. A year after his fight with Resto, Collins crashed his
car into a culvert, killing himself instantly. Lewis and Resto went on trial in
1986 and were found guilty of assault, criminal possession of a weapon and
conspiracy. They each served two-and-a-half years in prison and were banned from
boxing for life.
The truth is that a fighter
puts himself at risk when he steps in through the ring ropes. Fighters have died
and suffered debilitating injuries in the ring and something like loaded gloves
makes that risk so much greater.
Back to Margarito and his trainer -a one year
revocation is light for what ia at stake. The truth is that loading your gloves
is a crime, as it endangers the life of an athlete. It’s understandable that a
fighter like Cotto, who doesn’t know how to lose, and hears something like
gloves being loaded has to be angry and question whether or not there was some
kind of foul play involved.
Miguel’s knockout win over Michael Jennings this past Saturday night to capture
the vacant WBO welterweight title was nothing more than a confidence builder.
Jennings was not the opponent to let us know how much Cotto has left. Only time
will tell.
Despite the rumors, all we know is that there was a hard substance in Antonio
Margarito's wraps. Everybody from trainer Nazim Richardson, the assigned
commission and its inspectors, Shane’s lawyer and Shane Mosley himself saw what
was in those wraps. Margarito’s trainer has also gone on record to say that he
accidentally put this substance in Antonio’s hand wraps, so there was foul play.
The problem is that we don’t know what was in the wraps. There has yet to be a
conclusion to the situation, we need to know, was there "plaster of Paris?"
~Editor's Note - For more on plaster of Paris
click here~
2-26-2009
