Margarito still running with wrong crowd
Wednesday, July 29, 2009 |
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Your weekly random thoughts …
• If
Antonio Margarito wants to get his boxing license back in the United States, he sure is going about it the wrong way. While I was watching Top Rank's "Latin Fury 10" pay-per-view Saturday night, I saw
Javier Capetillo in the dressing room preparing junior flyweight titlist
Giovani Segura, who would go on to successfully defend his belt in the co-feature. Capetillo, of course, is the disgraced trainer banned in the United States because he loaded Margarito's hand wraps with an illegal, plaster-like substance before a January fight with
Shane Mosley in Los Angeles. The cheating was caught before the fight started and Margarito was forced to have his hands re-wrapped. Later, Margarito and Capetillo both had their licenses revoked in California for the egregious infraction.
Segura's fight took place in Mexico, where Capetillo is allowed to work because Mexican officials wrongly do not recognize license revocations in the U.S. I can't blame Capetillo for continuing to work where he is allowed. But what was really disconcerting was that Margarito was with Capetillo in Segura's dressing room. He was also with the trainer and boxer in the ring before and after the fight. Margarito hopes to reapply for a license when he is allowed to early next year, and will have to go before the California commission at that point for another hearing.
If Margarito truly didn't know that Capetillo had loaded his hand wraps, as he claims, wouldn't he be angry at Capetillo? Don't you think he'd be keeping his distance? Don't you think he would have dumped him by now for trying to cheat, causing his license to be revoked and severely damaging his career?
Instead, Margarito is still with Capetillo, making it even more difficult to believe his weak story that he didn't know what the trainer was doing. If I'm on the California commission and responsible for deciding whether Margarito gets his license back, the scene of him being so chummy with Capetillo certainly disappoints me, erodes any shred of credibility his story has and makes it difficult for me to vote in favor of relicensing him. By hanging around with Capetillo, Margarito is sending the wrong message to California regulators, as well as many of the folks who would like to give him the benefit of the doubt but find it almost impossible.
• Heavyweight titleholder
Vitali Klitschko isn't just sitting around lamenting the fact that
David Haye ran from a Sept. 12 fight they had agreed upon. Instead, I'm told by some of the folks involved in the fight that Klitschko is close to a deal to meet
Chris Arreola in an HBO fight on Sept. 26 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the same arena where Klitschko had his classic slugfest with
Lennox Lewis and later stopped
Corrie Sanders to win a vacant title. I think Klitschko-Arreola is a far more interesting fight than Klitschko-Haye, because I think Arreola has a better chance of winning. I also think the bout could draw a huge crowd given that Arreola is a Mexican-American from Southern California and would be bidding to become the first fighter of Mexican heritage to win a heavyweight title.
• After Haye turned tail and ran from
Wladimir Klitschko (June 20) and then Vitali (Sept. 12) to sign for a Nov. 7 fight against
Nikolai Valuev, I received a lot of questions from the Fight Freaks during last week's chat asking whether HBO, which Haye blew off by backing out of both fights, would be interested in televising Valuev-Haye. So I asked HBO Sports president
Ross Greenburg about it. His answer was short and sweet: "We have no interest in a Valuev versus Haye fight." I don't blame him one iota.
• So HBO isn't interested in Valuev-Haye. But I also hear HBO simply isn't interested in a rematch between cruiserweight champ
Tomasz Adamek and mandatory challenger
Steve Cunningham, who waged a tremendous battle in December in one of the best fights of 2008. I think HBO, which hasn't televised the fight of the year since 2004 (Marco Antonio Barrera-
Erik Morales III), is missing the boat on this one, big time.
• You have to give a little credit to "Friday Night Fights" programmer
Doug Loughery, who makes due with a miniscule budget for the ESPN2 series: The Aug. 28 season finale should send the show out with a bang this year. It features two title bouts that seem competitive:
Juan Urango will defend his junior welterweight belt against
Randall Bailey, and
Tavoris Cloud will face
Clinton Woods for a vacant light heavyweight title. There have been plenty of good fights on FNF over the years, but not cards with two title bouts that both appear interesting. It's easily the best card the series has had in years.
• Only 11 weeks until Showtime's Super Six World Boxing Classic starts. Let's hope that
Mikkel Kessler and
Andre Ward both make it through supposed tune-up fights in September so that the tournament isn't wrecked before it begins.
• Even when the abominable WBA does something that makes sense, it screws up. In this case, it finally stripped heavyweight
Ruslan Chagaev of his ludicrous "champion in recess" title. After all, he was no longer in recess, having fought twice in six months (in February and June). There was also the little matter of Wladimir Klitschko beating the stuffing out of him in a brutally one-sided shellacking June 20, even though the silly "recess" title was not at stake. But just when you want to try to give the WBA a sliver of credit, you can't. The reason: The WBA made Chagaev its No. 1 contender, which is mind-blowing in its stupidity. Maybe I need to send a DVD of the Klitschko fight to the geniuses at the WBA offices. Those who run that circus need to view it again and see the joke of a No. 1 contender get absolutely laid to waste. If the WBA wanted to leave him in the top 10, fine. No. 1? Just another day in the WBA's bizarro world.
• And while I'm on the subject of the onerous WBA, how about this one: For no apparent reason, featherweight titleholder
Chris John was promoted to "super champion," even though he hasn't unified a title, as is the WBA's rule for crowning a "super champion." It also promoted "interim champion"
Yuriorkis Gamboa to "regular champion." Swine flu is more appealing than the WBA.
• Let's hope sanity prevails and
Paul Williams and his team don't blow the fight with
Kelly Pavlik because of their outrageous demands.
• I've been following junior welterweight
Devon Alexander since he turned pro. I'm really looking forward to seeing if he can beat former titleholder
Junior Witter in a Showtime fight Saturday night and win the vacant title. Since day one I've believed Alexander would win one someday, and I love his chances this weekend.
• I enjoyed the first installment of Golden Boy's "Fight Night Club" on Versus, and now it's back for the second of four scheduled monthly episodes from Club Nokia at L.A. Live on Thursday night (10 ET). The series is designed to bring boxing back to downtown Los Angeles while giving younger fighters a chance to make a big impression in evenly matched bouts. There are three fighters -- all of whom had solid amateur careers and are managed by
Frank Espinoza -- to watch out for on this week's card: lightweight
Luis Ramos Jr. (11-0, 6 KOs), lightweight
Carlos Molina (7-0, 3 KOs) and featherweight
Ronny Rios (5-0, 2 KOs). Golden Boy recently signed all three.
• Contrary to reports, there are no plans for cruiserweight champion
Tomasz Adamek to move up to heavyweight to fight Polish countryman
Andrew Golota, according to Adamek promoter Main Events. I have only two words: Thank goodness.
•
DVD pick of the week: Another week, another passing of a former champion. In this case, it was former welterweight and junior middleweight champ
Vernon Forrest, who was murdered Saturday night in an apparent robbery attempt. Naturally, I was compelled to go into my archive for a Forrest fight, and I picked his first meeting with Mosley -- then the recognized welterweight champ and No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter. It was Jan. 26, 2002, at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, where the former amateur rivals finally met as professionals. Forrest had upset Mosley in the Olympic trials to seal a spot on the 1992 team and had his number in the pros as well, beating him twice. But it is their first professional bout that stands out. Mosley had never been knocked down until Forrest floored him twice in the second round (following a nasty accidental headbutt that Mosley got the worst of). Forrest almost knocked him out again in the 10th round and cruised to the lopsided unanimous decision. The inspired performance was the high point of a career and life cut far too short by needless violence.
