For nearly a quarter century, journeyman boxer Luis Resto claimed he didn’t know his gloves had been stripped of their padding and his hand wraps soaked in Plaster of Paris before administering a savage beating to Billy Collins Jr. But after years in prison and living a life haunted by one he wound up extinguishing ? Collins appeared to take his life after Resto so severely injured him ? Resto confessed two years ago to filmmaker Eric Drath in the documentary “Cornered.”
It is against that harrowing backdrop that I’m hard-pressed to buy Antonio Margarito’s and his promoter Bob Arum’s claims that Margarito was clueless about the plaster-like substance found on his gloves before fighting Shane Mosley in January 2009. The discovery cost Margarito his license for a year in California, where that bout was held, and the revocation is being respected across the country over a year later now.
And even in what would be the remote possibility that a veteran and champion of the ring like Margarito didn’t know that his fists had been doctored, he should have. In a potentially deadly sport like boxing, ignorance should not be an acceptable defense.
Margarito’s career should be over. Arum shouldn’t be allowed to squeeze another penny out of the once very popular pugilist.
And Arum’s champion fighter Manny Pacquiao, now also an elected lawmaker in his native Philippines, shouldn’t entertain the idea of rewarding such an abject offender of sportsmanship and the laws of the land with a payday in a ring, especially one outside of the United States that would circumvent the ruling here against Margarito.
But with Floyd Mayweather deciding to take the rest of this year off rather than attempt to vanquish the last challenger to his title as best in a generation, Arum is shopping a Pacquiao-Margarito bout for November and Pacquiao hasn’t found the fortitude to say, as he should, “No thank you.”
Boxing’s governors have been clear about the Margarito case. Margarito earlier this month met with boxing officials in Nevada about the possibility of being licensed there, but they tabled their decision and requested that Margarito first ask California for an official reinstatement of his license. He tested the waters in Texas before that and found it cold to the idea of having him fight there.
One-time Arum cash cow Oscar De La Hoya turned Arum-competitor as a promoter told FanHouse video-journalist Elie Seckbach on Monday that he didn’t think Margarito should be allowed to fight again.
“Why should any fighter who’s been banned because he was wearing Plaster of Paris in his gloves be allowed to fight?” De La Hoya questions. “A lot of people are against it, including myself. … There’s no reason why he should be licensed to fight.”
Miguel Cotto, who Margarito curiously beat to a pulp before getting busted against Mosley, also said Margarito shouldn’t be allowed in the ring, at least not until California lets him back in.
What Margarito was accused and found guilty of doing is so egregious, however, that I don’t think it ever should be given anything less than a lifetime suspension, or a suspension of several years. Watch Drath’s film. Or watch Margarito chew up Cotto, who until then had never had that happen to him and had started dropping guys with body shots.
Maybe that’s why Margarito hasn’t yet mustered the chutzpah to plead for his right to fight back in California and instead is tiptoeing around the country asking every other boxing commission. Maybe that’s why he and Arum, with Pacquiao letting his name tow them, are looking to take a purse from some well-heeled place overseas like the U.A.E. and use it to salve what should be their shame.
At least Mayweather’s refusing to fight Pacquiao at the moment, if ever, is just offensive to sports fanaticism. But thinking about Margarito fighting again, especially from what should be Mayweather’s corner opposite Pacquiao, is offensive to the sensibilities.
Resto (right) was sentenced to prison and never allowed to fight again. Margarito should thank The Creator every day that Mosley’s corner man Nazim Richardson caught Margarito’s caper before law enforcement did or he, too, may have wound up in the same place as Resto.
FanHouse boxing editor Lem Satterfield on Tuesday reminded in a Q&A with Arum that Arum is the same promoter who infamously admitted years ago that sometimes he fibs and sometimes he doesn’t. Arum defended Margarito as some rube who didn’t know what was going on. He said the California State Athletic Commission’s report on Margarito didn’t mention Plaster of Paris.
A copy of a report I found easily on the Internet stated in part:
“In the Matter of Antonio Margarito, Case No. 2009-0210-1, Findings of Fact, 4-9. A Physical Evidence Examination Report, issued by the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services on March 19, 2009 to the CSAC (subsequent to the CSAC hearing), and later provided to the Los Angeles Times pursuant to a Public Information Act request, reveals:
“The submitted gauze pad was examined using a stereomicroscope. A white solid material was seen adhering to and between the gauze fibers. Calcium and sulfur were detected in samples of the white solid using an X-ray florescence [XRF] spectrometer. The elements calcium, sulfur and oxygen are found in plaster of Paris [calcium sulfate CaSO4]. These three elements are also found in substances other than plaster.”
The report went on to state:
“The CSAC concluded that: (1) the thin gauze pads, constituting a portion of Margarito’s hand wrap, had been adulterated with a white plaster-like substance; (2) the use of a plaster-like substance in a boxer’s hand wraps seriously endangers the boxer’s opponent; and (3) such use gives a boxer an unfair advantage and causes discredit to boxing.”
It would be a further discredit to boxing, something the sport often seems to pile on itself, for Arum and Pacquiao to make their deal with the game’s latest devil.
