Margarito's License Still in Limbo, Decision Due Tuesday

By Keith Idec

Antonio Margarito remains in licensing limbo.

The former welterweight champion interrupted his training camp Sunday to fly on a private jet from Toluca, Mexico, to Teterboro, New Jersey. He is scheduled to arrive Sunday night, when he’ll head to a Manhattan hotel to await his fate.

Somehow, the New York State Athletic Commission still hasn’t informed Margarito’s handlers at Top Rank Inc. which NYSAC-approved ophthalmologist will examine his surgically repaired right eye Monday. They don’t know where and when the testing will take place, either.

The only thing Top Rank executives do know is that they won’t learn until Tuesday whether Margarito will be licensed in New York to fight Miguel Cotto on Dec. 3 at Madison Square Garden. If Margarito doesn’t meet the NYSAC doctor’s standards and he is denied a New York license, they’ll move the HBO Pay-Per-View card headlined by the Cotto-Margartio rematch either to Pepsi Arena in Denver or US Airways Center in Phoenix.

Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas is no longer being considered as an alternate site because of a scheduling conflict with a convention.

“We’ll do what we’ve got to do [Monday],” Carl Moretti, Top Rank’s vice president of boxing operations, said Sunday. “They’ll decide on Tuesday and let the chips fall where they may.”

The NYSAC delayed its ruling on whether to grant Margarito a boxing license Friday afternoon during another hearing. The NYSAC instead requested Margarito submit to an independent eye exam, despite that two of the world’s leading eye specialists testified during a closed-door hearing Wednesday that Margarito is fit to fight.

Dr. Alan S. Crandall, who performed cataract surgery on Margarito six months ago, was one of those two specialists. According to NYSAC chairwoman Melvina Lathan, the commission rejected Margarito’s initial license application Oct. 31 because it did not receive all the paperwork it required regarding Margarito’s eye.

Though the site isn’t solidified, the Cotto-Margarito rematch will be contested Dec. 3 for Cotto’s WBA super welterweight title. Mexico’s Margarito (38-7, 27 KOs, 1 NC) scored an 11th-round TKO victory over Puerto Rico’s Cotto (36-2, 29 KOs) in their first fight, a bloody, brutal battle in July 2008 in Las Vegas.

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com.