by David P. Greisman
Does the crime dictate the punishment? Or do the consequences of the crime dictate the consequences for the criminal?
Those are the questions that those in boxing must ultimately contemplate when it comes time to decide whether Antonio Margarito should be allowed to fight again.
Two months ago, Margarito was caught with a foreign substance in his hand wraps prior to his fight with Shane Mosley. The California State Athletic Commission official charged with supervising Margarito’s dressing room never noticed the tampering. Only when Mosley’s trainer, Naazim Richardson, entered was the foul play discovered.
Here is the rundown of what happened Jan. 24, 2009, according to Lance Pugmire of the Los Angeles Times:
Richardson objected to the way in which Margarito’s hands were wrapped, telling officials the tape was too thick. As Margarito’s hands were unwrapped, Richardson noticed two pads that had been inserted inside the hand wraps. Those pads looked as if they were wet and had a substance on them that looked like Plaster of Paris.
The substance was removed. Margarito’s hands were rewrapped. Nine rounds later, Margarito was knocked out.
Margarito could be out much longer.
In February, the CSAC revoked Margarito’s license and that of his trainer, Javier Capetillo, a ruling that would prevent either from working in the state for a year. Last week we found out just what was on those pads.
Calcium and sulfur. Combine those two with oxygen and you have Plaster of Paris.
A boxer’s fists are dangerous weapons. Coat the wraps around them with something harder than the normal tape and gauze and those fists become deadly weapons.
By revoking Margarito’s license, the CSAC effectively kept him from fighting throughout the United States. Margarito could apply for a license elsewhere, but other states would likely respect California officials’ ruling.
Margarito could fight outside of the United States. Doing so, however, would probably raise the ire of commission officials in America should he choose to fight in the States again.
All that may be moot.
Margarito can apply for reinstatement in 2010. When he does, those who hear his case must decide whether the crime alone dictates the punishment, or if what consequences became of the crime dictate what consequences there should be for the criminal.
The difference between the latter and the former will decide what Margarito’s punishment will be: a year or a career.
In 1983, Luis Resto was caught cheating after giving a 10-round beating to Billy Collins Jr. Resto and his trainer, Panama Lewis, would spend time behind bars after being convicted of removing padding from Resto’s gloves. Collins, partially blinded, struggled with depression and died in a car accident less than a year later. Earlier last year, 25 years after that fight, Resto admitted that, in addition to having unpadded gloves, he had soaked his hand wraps in plaster of Paris before the bout.
Resto and Lewis were banned from boxing forever.
In criminal law, there is a difference between actually assaulting a person and conspiring to commit an assault.
Boxing is not bound by such a line.
Those in power need not be forced to wait for a fighter to move beyond the conspiracy stage. The intent was there. Illegal, hardened pads were in Margarito’s wraps. Those hands would soon be in gloves. Those hands would soon hit another man. Had Margarito fought with those wraps and given Shane Mosley a career-ending beating, there would be no need for debate.
There are those who defend Margarito. Capetillo, his trainer, took the blame at a CSAC hearing, saying he was fully responsible for the illegal hand wraps. Capetillo offered a dubious reason for why it happened, saying he mistakenly picked up wraps another fighter had previously used in the gym.
Right.
Capetillo fell on his sword for the sake of his fighter, doing so in a manner in which he tried to deflect the brunt of any backlash away from Margarito while still salvaging his own career.
Margarito is the boss of his team. Though he entrusts his trainer and his cornermen with the responsibility of getting him through everything from training camp until the final bell, elite athletes should not be able to plead ignorance and blame others when caught breaking the rules.
A baseball player should know what substance is being injected into his body. A boxer should know what his trainer is putting on his hands – the tools of his trade.
True, Margarito didn’t wear those illegal, hardened pads into the ring. He did not give a career-ending beating. But the same could be said of Edward Mpofu and his bout with Thanduxolo Dyani.
Mpofu, a featherweight from South Africa, was allegedly caught with Plaster of Paris in his gloves following a fight this past September. Mpofu would lose a six-round decision to Dyani, and Dyani reportedly escaped with little injury beyond a swollen left eye.
Mpofu is the middle ground between Antonio Margarito and Luis Resto. Unlike Margarito, he didn’t get caught with the Plaster of Paris until after the fight. Unlike Resto, the cheating didn’t do him any good.
Mpofu will never be allowed to fight again. Margarito shouldn’t either.
Margarito has more backing because he has a name and a following. Before he lost to Mosley, he was the welterweight champion, a longtime veteran who many had avoided and few had respected. When Margarito stopped Miguel Cotto last year to become the top welterweight in the world, he also became a Mexican hero, a guaranteed ticket seller.
In this sport, money often wins out over integrity.
After the CSAC revoked Margarito’s license, the fighter’s promoter, Bob Arum, decried the commission’s decision and spoke of bringing Margarito to Mexico.
What will he say now? What would he have said had another fighter tried this against someone from his own stable?
Arum would probably say he’d want what many of us are now calling for. For a cheater not to prosper. For the punishment to match the intent of the crime. For the commissions and sanctioning bodies to ban Margarito, hitting him as hard as he could have and would have hit someone else had he gotten away with it.
The 10 Count
1. So much for an intriguing proposed bout that would have seen former middleweight and light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins challenge cruiserweight champion Tomasz Adamek.
So much for it, and that’s because Hopkins apparently wanted too much, leaving too little for Adamek, according to ESPN.com scribe Dan Rafael.
Hopkins and Golden Boy Promotions apparently offered Adamek and Main Events a flat fee of $500,000, which would be split between the fighter and his promoter. Adamek, a Polish transplant, has proven to be a draw in areas with a high concentration of Polish immigrants, selling tickets in and around Chicago and in Newark, N.J.
That payday would’ve been less than what Adamek and Main Events received for Adamek’s fight last month against Johnathon Banks.
2. Adamek-Hopkins had been proposed for July 11 on HBO. That bout being a no-go opens a door for Floyd Mayweather Jr., who reportedly had been eyeing that date for his return from his so-called retirement.
Mayweather’s adviser, Al Haymon, wanted his client to have a tune-up fight on the premium cable network instead of on pay-per-view, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.
One possible reason for that, Rafael wrote, is because low pay-per-view numbers would lessen any bargaining leverage Mayweather would have for a fight with the winner of May’s bout between Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao.
Keep in mind, HBO bombed in the ratings last year when Oscar De La Hoya fought Steve Forbes in a tune-up fight in his first non-PPV appearance in years. The economy’s changed since then.
3. Promoter Don King has filed a protest over Marco Antonio Barrera’s technical decision loss earlier this month to Amir Khan, complaining about the manner in which the fight was stopped.
Barrera and Khan clashed heads less than two minutes into the fight, opening up a large vertical gash high on the left side of Barrera’s forehead. That cut never stopped bleeding. A ringside physician checked on Barrera’s wound halfway through the fourth round but sent him back into battle. The doctor checked on Barrera again in the waning moments of round five, though that time the fight was called off.
Had the fight been stopped before the fourth round was over, the bout would have ended as a “No Contest.” Once the bell rang to begin round five, the rules called for the bout to go to the scorecards.
Here’s what King said in a press release, quotes with language so King-like that it seems as if this was one of those rare instances when a publicist didn’t do some creative conjuring (and if I’m wrong in this case, then there’s some egg on my face):
“Amir Khan is in possession of a tainted victory,” King is quoted as saying. “The referee and doctor should have stopped the fight immediately after that incredible, accidental clash of heads. That they allowed the fight to continue with Barrera competing at a huge disadvantage goes against everything that’s designed to protect the health and safety of boxers, the good of the sport and uphold the traditions emanating from the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
“Marco Antonio Barrera should not lose any of his position and stature [due] to this travesty of justice,” King is quoted as saying. “He should not be punished for what was beyond his control. He fought like the great Mexican champion he is with valor, courage and honor, while those charged with ensuring a level field of competition failed the sport and the fighter greatly. They endangered his health and safety, and [that of] every other boxer who follows him into the ring hereafter if this error in judgment is not corrected.”
4. I would’ve paid big bucks to hear Don King quote Jackie Chiles of “Seinfeld” fame: “It’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous.”
5. I’d pay even bigger bucks to see Don King get his own reality show, which would be, well, outrageous, egregious and preposterous.
6. Boxing Journalist Behaving Badly update: Dale S. Hausner, a former boxing photographer accused of being a serial killer, was sentenced to death last week by the same jury that found him guilty of killing six people and injuring 19, according to The Arizona Republic.
Hausner, whose work occasionally ran on a well-known boxing Web site, was one of three men connected with a 15-month shooting spree in and around Phoenix that ended with eight people dead and left 20 more wounded. He was arrested in August 2006. The trial began last fall.
A former roommate of Hausner’s pleaded guilty to two of the murders. Hausner’s older brother, Jeff, allegedly played a role in the spree as well.
Hausner will return to court today (March 30) to be sentenced for the other 74 charges on which he was found guilty. Soon he will take his spot on death row.
“How long he stays there remains to be seen,” wrote Arizona Republic reporter Michael Kiefer. “As with all death sentences, Hausner's case will automatically be appealed to the Arizona and U.S. Supreme Courts. And after that, he can bounce his appeals through state and federal courts for decades.”
7. A boxing match between former boxing heavyweight titlist Ray Mercer and former mixed martial arts heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia is still on – even though it should be off.
Mercer-Sylvia had been due to meet May 30 in Atlantic City (I erroneously wrote Las Vegas in a previous column, and I regret the error).
The New Jersey State Athletic Control Board would not sanction the match, however, according to MMAWeekly.com. Now the bout has moved to June 13 and to Alabama, a state that “does not have a regulatory body to oversee the fight,” according to Sherdog.com.
Mercer is turning 48 in April. Sylvia, whose MMA record is 24-5, twice was the best big man in the UFC. His last MMA appearance was a knockout loss to Fedor Emelianenko, 36 seconds of what was essentially a boxing match.
8. I can’t decide if the fight’s promoter, Monte Cox, is sleazy for putting a 48-year-old man in the ring despite an athletic commission refusing to sanction it, or brilliant for knowing that said 48-year-old man should still have the advantage in a bout contested under the rules of the Marquis of Queensbury.
9. Moving on to another former UFC heavyweight champion. Andrei Arlovski will not be making his pro boxing debut April 11 on a Las Vegas undercard to a main event featuring Winky Wright against Paul Williams.
Arlovski, who trains under Freddie Roach, pulled out with a mild back strain suffered during training camp, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN.com.
“Although Andrei is healing fine and would be ready for April 11, I decided that there is no point in rushing his recovery, so I pulled him,” Arlovski’s manager, Billy Keane, said to Rafael. “The hope is to see him in action in May or June at the latest.”
This is the second time Arlovski’s boxing debut has been postponed. Arlovski had been expected to enter the Sweet Science last year on the Sept. 13 undercard to Joel Casamayor-Juan Manuel Marquez. He didn’t, though, fighting instead on an EliteXC MMA show in October. His last appearance in combat was a highlight-reel one-punch knockout loss in January against Fedor Emelianenko.
10. From the minds of others: two suggestions for the headline to this week’s column, and a great new nickname for Antonio Margarito.
“That’s a Wrap,” suggested one boxing writer.
“Margarito’s Career Dies at His Own Hands,” suggested another boxing writer, giving a line too good for me to have used without crediting the man who thought of it.
My brother, who doesn’t follow the Sweet Science, sent in this note showing the family’s sense of humor: “I’m ignorant. Is Margarito on the rocks because of this scandal?”
As for Margarito’s moniker, he previously entered the ring as “the Tijuana Tornado,” a nickname that began with Steve Kim of MaxBoxing.com.
That nickname could easily be replaced by one from the mind of “The Ring” magazine contributor Jim Bagg, who, I’m told, decided Margarito should henceforth be known as “The Plastered Bastard.”
Take a bow, Mr. Bagg.
David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com
