Two years ago Antonio Margarito had the boxing world within his fists.
He had just destroyed the fearsome welterweight Miguel Cotto with a display of savage punching destined to take him right to the top of the pay-per-view scale.
The Mexican’s performance turned him almost overnight from a dangerous contender into the man they all wanted to champion.
For the likes of Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, Margarito represented a ticket to further riches.
Then Margarito’s world fell apart on two counts.
First, he jumped into the first of what he hoped would be a number of pay-per-view blockbusters against Shane Mosley six months later, and was knocked out in the ninth round.
Second, and much more damning, was a subsequent examination of Margarito’s gloves which found they had been ‘loaded’ – boxing parlance for being strengthened, in this case with a plaster-like substance – to bolster his punch power.
From being flavour of the month Margarito was suddenly cast into the role of a boxing pariah, banned for a year by the California State Athletic Commission (and thus by most of America) despite his protestations of innocence.
Last weekend in the central Mexican city of Aguascalientes, Margarito began what he hopes will be a long road to redemption and perhaps even a future back in pay-per-view when he outpointed the game Roberto Garcia.
It promises to be the biggest challenge of the 32-year-old’s career. Margarito is still banned by California and has yet to re-apply for a licence. The key Nevada Commission are adamant they will honour California’s ban.
“I would have some questions that he would need to answer from me,” said Nevada State Athletic Commission director Keith Kizer this week. “And if he didn’t answer them truthfully, then I would recommend not granting a licence to him.”
Margarito continues to insist he had no idea what his then trainer Javier Capetillo – who was also banned – had put in his gloves. The problem for Margarito is that much of the boxing community refuses to believe him.
Worse, they cannot help wondering whether Margarito simply got away with the same illegal practice in some of his previous fights – notably against Cotto and his second fight, three months prior to Cotto, with Kermit Cintron.
Cintron’s promoter Lou DiBella believes there was every chance of foul play in that fight, which Margarito won by sixth round stoppage. “Margarito is a cheater, the worst kind of cheater,” said DiBella.
Meanwhile Cotto, at one time the man whom Floyd Mayweather was accused of studiously avoiding, came back to lose a thrilling contest with Pacquiao in the final round, but refuses to forgive his former foe.
“He doesn’t want people to think he is guilty,” said Cotto at the time. “But it’s not possible he didn’t know what Capetillo put on his hands. Every boxer knows what a trainer puts on his hands.”
Needless to say, Margarito has protested his innocence throughout and his long-time promoter Bob Arum maintains the tarnished fighter can claw his way back into those big-time pay-per-view fights.
Arum hopes Margarito’s comeback against Garcia – in which he looked a little rusty but attracted a supportive turnout of well over 10,000 fans – is the start of that tortuous route all the way back to Pacquiao.
“I think the most significant thing was the Mexican crowd, and how they greeted him,” said Arum. “I think any Commission in the United States to whom he applies for a licence will have to take that into account.”
In the cynical world of boxing, there is something else to take into account. Rightly or wrongly, Margarito’s travails have undoubtedly increased his marketability and in a sport short of superstar names, that counts for something.
It has always been so: think the media frenzy that greeted Mike Tyson’s first comeback fight after serving his prison sentence, no matter it was an un-loseable exhibition against club fighter Peter McNeeley.
Controversy sells. And with Pacquiao and Mayweather showing no signs of breaching their great divide, Margarito has already shunted himself towards the top of the list, possibly for a contest in September in the Philippines.
In the meantime, Margarito will continue to fight his corner. “I’m not a dirty fighter and I don’t need anything extra to win my fights,” he says. “But I know my reputation took a hit. So now I have to work extra-hard.”
