Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality. ? Oscar Wilde
As November 13 fast approaches, the boxing world readies itself for the most anticipated bout of the year when pound-for pound king Manny Pacquiao meets the ?Tijuana Tornado? Antonio Margarito.
The wake of the Margarito scandal, in which a plaster-like substance was found in Margarito?s hand-wraps prior to his 2008 fight with ?Sugar? Shane Mosley, has many critics, myself included, debating whether Margarito should even get the opportunity to fight Pacquiao.
For someone to say that Margarito given the opportunity to fight is a cruel injustice to the sport though is bereft of boxing?s history, one comprised not only of concrete fists, but fixed bouts, mob dives and supermen. A history fought as much in the backrooms as in the ring.
Illegally loaded gloves were the aha moment of the Mosley-Margarito fight, but one does not have to look back far to see that Mosley loaded more than his gloves when he admitted to using steroids prior to his 2003 fight against Oscar De La Hoya.
Mosley sticks by the story that he unknowingly took steroids given to him by BALCO head Victor Conte, a story that Conte refutes saying Mosley knew exactly what he was taking. A taped testimony of Mosley lends credence to Conte?s claim:
In an interview with Boxing Dispatch in June, Conte opined that the use of steroids goes far beyond Mosley and believes that, ?the majority of boxers are on steroids.?
?Cheating the system is a piece of cake, because they (trainers, fighters) know when testing is going to occur and they can stop the use of steroids before training camp begins,? Conte said.
There is little doubt that Margarito knew that his gloves had been tampered with. HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant said it best in a recent interview with Boxingscene.com:
?It bothers me further that while Margarito denies he knew it, which I find very problematic given the fact that a baseball player knows if his bat is a quarter of an ounce off, and a basketball player knows if the rim is a quarter of an inch off- that he has never even accepted responsibility.?
Margarito?s denial of and joking about the handwraps incident is shameful, but by no means should he be a pariah in a sport where tainted handwraps are not the only problem.
While steroids are not only a problem in boxing, the effects of it?s usage are more damaging in the sport. Using steroids to become the best hitter, shooter or runner is a different avenue than using steroids to inflict more damage on your opponent.
Margarito did get caught and does deserve punishment, but in an era where cheating can come through injection, cream rub or pill, the obvious cheaters being punished while the more scientific cheaters remain untouched reveal a problem not with the athletes but with the system.
The Nevada State Athletic Commission, the preeminent commission in boxing, has multiple problems with their steroid testing which, although being outdated, is backed by medical testimony.
The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency CEO Travis Tygart addressed the commission in June with his opinions on their current line of testing.
?Make no mistake, when an athlete cheats with drugs, it is fraud. A lot of taxpayer money is being defrauded when athletes cheat and win,? Tygart said. ?Please, no disrespect. I appreciate your willingness to consider these issues and hopefully do better. I think frankly, [the current testing system] is inadequate. You guys deserve better. Your athletes deserve better.?
It may be in a lot of viewers opinions on fight night that Margarito cheated, but, in reality, he just may not have been a good enough cheater.
