Antonio Margarito stood in his corner at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, surrounded by New York State Athletic doctors and inspectors pleading for one more round against his nemesis, Miguel Cotto. Margarito looked like a man standing before judges in court, begging for justice.
His pleas fell on deaf ears, even if referee Steve Smoger wasn’t exactly sure what to do and allowed the bell to ring to signal the start of the 10th round and allowed 3 seconds to tick off the clock before calling timeout. Margarito’s surgically repaired right eye had a rip on the bottom lid that would need 12 stitches to close after the fight, and it was leaking blood.
The eye was swollen shut by the eighth round. Now two rounds later and Margarito, who was trailing 89-82 on all three scorecards, wanted a chance to try to do what he had been unable to do the whole fight – land a decisive KO blow against Cotto.
Dr. Anthony Curreri had seen enough to know that Margarito could not see enough to do what he wanted to do. Plus Curreri was not going to allow a repeat of what happened in the Manny Pacquiao fight last Nov. 13 to occur on Saturday night? another fracture to the orbital bone and possible permanent damage to the eye.
“It came to the point there was no vision at all from the eye,” Curreri said. “I think it would have been dangerous for him to go out there without any visual field. He did go quite a bit with the eye impaired.”
And so it was that Curreri brought down the curtain on one of the best dramas playing off Broadway before a sold out crowd of 21,239 on Saturday night when he told Smoger to stop the fight at 3 seconds of the 10th round to give Cotto the TKO victory.
“I think it was a little bit of favoritism because my eye was worse when I fought Pacquiao,” Margarito said. “The doctor asked me three times ‘How many fingers am I holding?’ and I responded correctly. I think I could have continued. I asked for at least one more round.”
When it was over, Cotto walked close to Margarito’s corner and stared him down
