Category: BOXING NEWS

By Matt Stein: It seems like boxing fans will never forgive Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO’s) for the hand wrap incident before his fight against Shane Mosley last year in January. At that time, a plaster-like substance was found on Margarito’s hand wraps immediately before his fight against Mosley. After the hand wraps were removed and a set of substitute non-plaster containing hand wraps were put on Margarito’s hands, he went out and was stopped in the 9th round by Mosley. A week later, Margarito had his boxing license revoked for one year by the California Athletic Commission.

Margarito has now done more than a year of the suspension, and yet he still doesn’t have his boxing license and many fans dislike him intensely. My question is where is the compassion among fans? Is this a society where when you make a mistake, you’re forever penalized? Everyone makes mistakes and they should be forgiven after they’ve been punished for them. You can’t just permanently punish someone for their mistakes because how can they learn from them if they’re finished after only error.

I think it’s high time that Margarito be re-embraced by boxing fans. The man has done his time, paid his price and is now looking to fight the biggest fight of his career against Manny Pacquiao on November 13th. This will be Margarito’s biggest payday of his career, and if he does the impossible and pulls off an upset of Pacquiao, he will be a huge star, whether some fans like it or not. I expect that the Nevada Athletic Commission will give Margarito his boxing license back so that the November 13th fight against Pacquiao will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada. Margarito will end up with a boxing license even if Nevada doesn’t give it to him. This fight is bigger than Margarito’s past mistake, and the money is too huge for one of the Commissions to deny the talented Margarito his boxing license.

Few boxing fans are giving Margarito much if any chance at beating Pacquiao. They see Margarito only for his last two fights against Mosley and Roberto Garcia. However, my guess is many of those same boxing fans would be picking Margarito if this was 2008. Margarito looked great at that time and was at the top of his game. But in the Mosley fight, Margarito came in weight drained and not in the best of shape. It wasn’t that he lost anything; it was that he had taken off too much weight in too short of a time frame. This won’t be the case on November 13th. We’ll be seeing the old Margarito and I think he’s going to give Pacquiao a lot of problems and very possibly beat him up and stop him the same way that Margarito stopped the hard hitting Kermit Cintron on two occasions in the past.

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By Jason Kim: You may not be too eager to see a rematch between Miguel Cotto and Manny Pacquiao, but that’s likely what you’ll be seeing next year. Top Rank promoter Bob Arum, who promotes both Cotto and Pacquiao, said that he’ll look to put them together depending on how Cotto does in his next fight.

In an article at ESPN, Arum says “Cotto, we figure, should have another fight this winter and shown the improvement he’s made under Emanuel Steward [Cotto’s new trainer], and then we could look at him maybe next year” [against Pacquiao again]. Cotto had been in the running for a rematch with Pacquiao up until recently when Arum finally decided to go with Antonio Margarito, another one of his Top Rank fighters, for the fight with Pacquiao.

It will be for the vacant World Boxing Council junior middleweight title and will enable Pacquiao to go for a record setting 8th world title. Arum had thought of having Pacquiao go against Cotto, since he holds the WBA junior middleweight strap, for Pacquiao’s shot at the record. However, Pacquiao destroyed Cotto by a 12th round TKO last year in November 2009, and it was thought that it might be too soon for boxing fans to be seeing a rematch between Cotto and Pacquiao. However, even a rematch between Cotto and Pacquiao in 2011, might be too soon for many fans. Cotto has fought only once since the loss to Pacquiao, beating another Top Rank fighter Yuri Foreman last June.

If Cotto fights one more time before facing Pacquiao in a rematch, that would still likely be too soon for many people. When a fighter has been beaten as badly as Cotto was in the Pacquaio fight, it takes a string of wins over high quality fighters for fans to forget about the earlier loss and to think that the fighter might have a chance. It’s unclear who Cotto will be fighting next, but it’s probably not going to be someone with a big enough name for fans to see Cotto as being able to beat Pacquiao in a rematch. Beating the little known Foreman was okay, but the guy had no power and was on a bad right leg. Cotto probably needs wins over guys like Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez or Andre Berto for boxing fans to give him any chance at beating Pacquiao in a rematch.

However, that’s not going to happen now or possibly ever. At best, we probably will see Cotto against someone like Pawel Wolak. Trainer Freddie Roach would like to match Top Rank fighter Vanes Martirosyan against Cotto, but that probably won’t happen. I’m not expecting much at all for an opponent for Cotto. Foreman was perfect for Cotto, because he had no power. I’m guessing it’s going to be someone that won’t be able to inflict too much punishment on Cotto and make him look bad for a rematch with Pacquiao. Alfredo Angulo would be perfect, but he won’t get picked because he would have a very excellent chance of knocking Cotto out. I don’t expect him to get a chance anytime soon against Cotto.

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The ongoing drama between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao is reaching a fever pitch now that Floyd Mayweather Sr. is taking shots at his son’s nemesis.

With the deadline passing to complete negotiations for a fight between the two boxers, Mayweather Sr. is sounding off on Pacquiao calling him a “sissy” and one of the “biggest f*ggots on the planet.”

Money Mayweather’s father gave an interview to On The Ropes Boxing Radio and tells the station that if he ever got to meet Pacquaio he would have some choice words for him.

“I’d tell him he’s a f*ggot, go stick your head up under your dress. That’s what I would tell him, being real with you. Tell him he aint nothing but a little sissy, a little girl.”

The older Mayweather also says that the Filipino champ is scared of his son but had no problem fighting “big guys” like De La Hoya and Cotto.

According to Mayweather Sr.,  Pacquaio is showing his true colors as “one of the biggest f*ggots on the planet” for not agreeing to a bout.

“He (Pacquiao) ain’t got no problem with fighting all the big guys—[Oscar] de la Hoya, Ricky Hatton, the other African guy, the other guy who he fought with the title. I’m just saying he beat these guys, [Miguel] Cotto, he beat all these guys like they’re nothing. He’s one of the biggest f*ggots on the planet…He’s scared, all they’re [Pacquiao’s camp] trying to do is switch it around and make it look like it’s my son is the one that’s scared. I know who’s scared, for real.”

He also threw in one last jab saying,

“One of the biggest b*tches in the sport…that’s what he is, a b*tch.”

Pac-Man has since heard Mayweather’s comments and told ABC News-CSN,

“Tawanan na lang natin ‘yun.  Baka wala siya sa sarili nung pagsabi niya [ng comment na ‘yun]

Which translates to: “Let’s just laugh it off. He may not have been himself when he said that” in English.

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By Chris Williams: If your a fan of competitive fights, then you can pretty much forget about seeing any interesting match-ups involving WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao.

Unless a fight can be put together between Pacquiao and unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. next year in May, as Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum says going to try and do, then boxing fans will likely have to be content with seeing Pacquiao fight Top Rank fighters one after another starting with probably Margarito next in November.

This isn’t what boxing fans wanted to see from Pacquiao, but it’s what they’re going to get. Pacquiao’s diehard loyal fans aren’t about to complain, though, because many of them don’t appear to care who he fights. Just as long as Pacquiao is fighting, they’re happy.

But it’s disappointing that Pacquiao really doesn’t have a lot of options available for fights. Oh, sure, Pacquiao has tons of interesting opponents out there that he could fight. However, his promoter Bob Arum seems more interesting in matching him against his own fighters from his Top Rank stable, and unfortunately for Arum, his stable doesn’t have many fighters around Pacquiao’s weight class other than Margarito, Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Yuri Foreman, Vanes Martirosyan, and Matt Korobov. Out of that punch, only three of them are worth putting in with Pacquiuao.

But none of them can compare to the other more interesting fighters out there like Timothy Bradley, Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez, Marcos Maidana, Devon Alexander, Alfredo Angulo, Amir Khan and Andre Berto.

Those are the fighters that Pacquiao should be fighting, but there’s little chance of that happening. Pacquiao, because of Arum’s tendency to keep his fights in house, has really only two or three options available to him in the Top Rank stable. Once fights Cotto, and destroys him, there will only be Margarito and maybe Julio Cesar Chavez left in the stable for Pacquiao to fight, unless Arum wants to match Pacquiao up against his lesser stars like Martirosyan, Foreman and Korobov.

It would help make bigger stars of them, but it would hurt Pacquiao because he wouldn’t be matched against the fighters that boxing fans want to see. So you see, unless Arum can somehow put together a fight against Mayweather, Pacquiao has very options ahead of him. Hopefully, Pacquiao’s loyal fans can complain enough so that it gets Pacquiao’s attention and maybe he’ll speak up and make Arum match him against someone outside of his Top Rank stable. I kind of doubt he’ll do that.

Pacquiao will probably keep fighting whoever Arum puts in front of him.

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