By Rick Reeno
Wynn Resort & Casino, Las Vegas - During the summer, former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito announced that he was going to unretired and fight again in the near future.
Margarito (38-8, 27KOs), 37-years-old, has been away from the ring for nearly four years.
He was forced to retire after suffering a serious eye injury in his decision loss to Manny Pacquiao in November 2010.
After losing to Pacquiao and having to go through a thorough post-surgery recovery for the eye injury, he returned in December 2011 and was stopped in nine rounds by Miguel Cotto. In the early rounds of that rematch, Margarito's injured eye began to swell rapidly and it ultimately led to a ringside physician advising the referee to stop the fight.
Margarito had hoped to return on a date in December, likely as part of Top Rank's ongoing boxing series on UniMas.
The problem, as explained by Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, is Margarito insistence to get paid a lot of money for a tuneup fight.
Besides his monetary demands, Margarito has to regain his boxing license and it won't be a simple process given his age and past injuries.
Before they even discussed a potential return date, Arum had a top eye specialist examine and medically clear Margarito for a comeback.
But the biggest issue with finalizing his return is the amount of money Margarito is demanding to step back into the ring.
"Margarito has licensing problems and he has to fight tuneup fights for small money. Nobody is going to pay him a lot of money to buy tuneup fights," Arum said. "The eye we checked out completely and a big specialist cleared him."
Arum wants to test the comeback waters in a safe way. Until Margarito proves his current capabilities, Arum will not even consider a top twenty opponent or upgrading Margarito to a TruTV card.
"Forget a top twenty guy and forget TruTV. I'm not going to put him on TruTV not knowing how he's gonna fight. I'll put him in a UniMas fight but he wants a lot of money for a tuneup fight," Arum said.
