by Chris Robinson
The wheels are in motion and everything is coming into place for the upcoming camps of Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto. Cotto, the WBA junior middleweight champion of the world, meets up with Margarito on December 3rd at Madison Square Garden in a heated rematch that is also serving as one of the year’s biggest events.
Last week I was informed by Passaic, New Jersey junior middleweight contender Glen Tapia that he will likely be making the trek to Tampa, Florida later this month to begin working with Cotto and yesterday I caught notice of an article by FightHype.com’s David Kassel that highlighted how fellow prospect Omar Henry will be working with Margarito.
I had gotten to know Henry fairly well over the past year in Las Vegas after running into him at the Mayweather Boxing Club on repeated occasions and he always seemed to be a fixture at ringside for fights in the area. I caught up with the 24-year old to get a feel for his mindset heading into camp and he feels it is a great fit for him.
"I have a fight coming up myself, the same day as him,” said Henry. “So it’s a great opportunity for me to stay in shape and I’m getting great sparring with a great boxer as well. This is a big chance to get more exposure, I will be on HBO 24/7, you are going to see me, and I just think it’s a great opportunity.”
Margarito spent his last camp in Oxnard, California as he worked out of his trainer Robert Garcia’s personal facility. This time around the former champion from Tijuana will be switching things up and training in his native Mexico and it’s a move that elates young Henry.
“I love Mexico,” Henry insisted. “I fought there once before actually, a couple years ago when I was with Top Rank. I fought in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. I got a first round knockout in about twenty seconds. But I like Mexico, I’ve been there once before, they showed me a lot of love, and I look forward to going back there.”
One of the subplots surrounding the rematch between Cotto and Margarito is whether or not Antonio was performing illegally during his 11th round TKO victory in their first fight in July of 2008, as he was caught with tampered hand wraps prior to his following bout with Shane Mosley. It’s a topic that has been debated to length’s end but not one that Henry is willing to jump into.
“That’s not my business. I don’t know what happened. Only God knows. You know what I mean? God and Margarito. I can’t say anything. I really don’t have any opinion on it now,” Henry added.
Henry is now promoted by Don King Productions and last saw action this past June as he stopped Chris Tyler in under a round in Saint Charles, Missouri. He went on to add that he has no hard feelings towards his previous employers, Top Rank, and instead pointed the blame to his ex-manager Cameron Dunkin for nearly one-year spell of inactivity.
Henry is a brute in training and I still had images in my head of him pounding away on the mitts with trainer Roger Mayweather at Floyd’s gym. Henry has obvious love for the Mayweathers and would like to reconnect with them in Las Vegas but for the moment he is enjoying his jet setting lifestyle.
“Man, as you can see, I’m everywhere,” Henry stated with exuberance. “Puerto Rico, here and there, I just like traveling. But yeah, I’m going to go back to Vegas but I can’t really say where I am based out of right now, because I’m just everywhere. It just depends on when my fight is coming up, I like my training camps in all different places.”
I finished up by asking Henry for his take on Mayweather’s 4th round knockout over Victor Ortiz last month, a fight in which the undefeated champion cracked an unsuspecting Ortiz with a left-right combination that he never saw coming. Some have called Mayweather’s punches ‘cheap shots’ but Henry points to the fact that Ortiz had instigated things by head butting Floyd and feels his friend was in the right to act the way he did.
“I thought it was great. That’s what Floyd is supposed to have done. It’s not Floyd’s fault. Ortiz kissed him and hugged him like four times. How many times are you going to apologize? He did what he had to do and I would have done the same thing.”