Cotto vs Margarito 2 – expect War!
By David Blood
When these two boxers met in 2008 the result was a pulverised Miguel Cotto, his face looking like a soggy tomato covered with blood from forehead to neck and a delirious Antonio Margarito having reduced Cotto to a wreck, jumping around the ring.
After the fight there were pictures of Margarito’s hand wrappings that had “cracked” under the onslaught. Now if you know anything about boxing, you will know that a boxer’s hands are tightly bound with gauze bandage before the fight. Many layers of bandage are wrapped around the hands to protect the knuckles from injury during the fight. This is a skilled procedure and is always observed by someone from the opposite camp to ensure that a horseshoe or other hard object is not wrapped into the bandage, or any other, hardening substance like glue or a crack filler or plaster of Paris applied.
Bandage doesn’t “crack” as can be clearly seen in the picture taken after the fight of Margarito holding the ropes. There was a huge scandal after Cotto’s camp saw the cracked bandages and it later came out that the Cotto camp representative was not present during the entire wrapping process. – I guess he is no longer there!
The California State Athletic Commission revoked Margarito’s licence for “use of an illegal substance on the wrappings” and he was suspended for one year.
In January 2009, when his ban was lifted, Margarito fought “Sugar” Shane Mosley at the Staples Centre in LA. Before the fight, Mosley’s camp said they found pads containing flecks of a substance containing a “plaster of Paris” type substance in Margarito’s hand wraps, which were cut off and sealed for further inspection by the California State Athletic Commission, so Margarito was under close scrutiny.
The fight was a completely one-sided affair with Mosley winning every round until he punished the Mexican in round nine to such an extent that his corner threw in the towel. Could this be the same boxer who pulverised Miguel Cotto a year earlier and was now completely out-boxed by a 37-year-old boxer, who would go on to lose his next two fights. This showing made the Cotto result even more suspect!
On Saturday night Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto come face-to-face at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Cotto wants revenge, Margarito’s hand wrappings will be under the microscope and referee Steve Smoger won’t take any crap!
On the other hand Smoger is a referee who lets a fight run, he doesn’t get too involved and won’t stop a bout unless one boxer is out on his feet, not like the moron who stopped Tommy Oosthuizen’s last fight in the 11th round, when both boxers were in fine shape.
This will be a WAR. Margarito will want to prove that he beat his Puerto Rican opponent fair-and-square in 2008 and clear his name. Cotto believes that he was beaten by a man who used tactics that are not part of the Queensbury Rules. If Margarito’s wrapping are legal, I expect Cotto to win by KO or TKO once he has opened up his opponents eye’s. — David Blood, SportsCentral
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