By Keith Idec
Antonio Margarito flew back to Toluca, Mexico, from Teterboro, N.J., on Monday night to resume training camp after a New York State Athletic Commission-approved specialist examined his surgically repaired right eye.
As requested by the NYSAC at a hearing Friday, Margarito was examined Monday afternoon in Manhattan by Dr. Michael T. Goldstein in an effort to further prove he deserves the New York boxing license required to fight Miguel Cotto on Dec. 3 at Madison Square Garden. The three-member NYSAC will rule at a hearing scheduled to start at 2 p.m. Tuesday whether to grant Margarito a license, presumably based on Goldstein’s recommendation.
Margarito already has the support of Dr. Alan S. Crandall, who performed cataract surgery on Margarito six months ago. Crandall, a world-renowned cataract and glaucoma specialist, was one of two eye experts that testified in favor of licensing Margarito at a closed-door NYSAC hearing Wednesday.
Top Rank Inc., which promotes Margarito and Cotto, also had Margarito examined Monday morning in Great Neck, N.Y., by Dr. Kenneth J. Rosenthal, another respected speciliast who serves as president of the New York Intraocular Lens Implant Society (Margarito also had an artificial lens implanted in his right eye).
“He’s clearly a top-of-the-line surgeon who’s seen all this a thousand times,” Carl Moretti, Top Rank’s vice president of boxing operations, said of Rosenthal. “We saw him this morning. We had our own exam done. And in that one, he did great.”
The results of Goldstein’s NYSAC-approved exam won’t be known until Tuesday. If Margarito is denied a license, the entire card will likely be moved to Pepsi Arena in Denver. The US Airways Center in Phoenix remains a potential replacement venue, but Pepsi Arena is the favored alternative.
According to NYSAC chairwoman Melvina Lathan, the commission rejected Margarito’s initial license application Oct. 31 because it didn’t have sufficient information to declare Margarito fit to fight.
Margarito will not have licensing issues in Colorado or Arizona, according to Top Rank founder Bob Arum.
Everyone at Top Rank’s preference, of course, is to keep the fight at Madison Square Garden, where Cotto has drawn well for much of his career due in part to the New York metropolitan area’s large Puerto Rican population. More than 18,000 tickets have been sold for the grudge rematch between Mexico’s Margarito (38-7, 27 KOs, 1 NC) and Puerto Rico’s Cotto (36-2, 29 KOs).
“We feel confident,” Moretti said. “The hearing’s [Tuesday] at two o’clock and we’ll go from there.”
Moretti also said Margarito was in good spirits Monday, despite the disruption of his training camp so close to a high-profile fight. He worked out at his Manhattan hotel between eye examinations Monday, before heading to Teterboro Airport early Monday night.
The 33-year-old Margarito never anticipated making this trip, though.
He received favorable reports when visiting Crandall’s office at the University of Utah’s John A. Moran Eye Center in Salt Lake City at least once a month since undergoing cataract surgery on his right eye May 19. That procedure followed surgery to repair the broken right orbital bone he suffered during the one-sided beating he absorbed against Manny Pacquiao last Nov. 13 in Arlington, Texas.
Margarito thought his career was over because his vision remained blurry for several months after the first surgery, but Crandall cleared him to return to the ring. He started training lightly in July for what will be just his fourth fight since he stopped Cotto in the 11th round of their first fantastic fight nearly 3½ years ago in Las Vegas.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com.
