By Lem Satterfield
If a year-end rematch takes shape between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito, veteran trainer Emanuel Steward predicts a very tough fight. Margarito stopped Cotto in the eleventh round of their 2008 match to give the Puerto Rican star the first loss of his career. Because of the hand wraps incident, Margarito's win, according to some, has been stained.
On January 24, 2009, about an hour or so before the start of his fight with Shane Mosley at Staples Center in Los Angeles, inserts containing an illegal substance were discovered in Margarito's hand wraps. The California State Athletic Commission revoked Margarito's license to box in February 2009. Questions have been raised as to whether or not Margarito may have possibly used these illegal "inserts" in other fights, but the one fight everyone seems to bring up is the one involving Cotto.
Margarito returned to the ring in May to win a decision over Roberto Garcia in Mexico. Since his return, the hype has slowly been spinning for a rematch with Cotto. Steward, the current trainer of Cotto, views Margarito as a very dangerous opponent - with or without the inserts.
"I think Margarito, even if you take away the badly taped hands, he's still one tough son of a b*tch, you know? I'm down in Los Angeles while he was training once, and he just trains really, really hard. Regardless of what may have been in his hands, he was always in great shape," Steward said.
The night the inserts were discovered, Margarito was allowed to move forward with his scheduled fight against Mosley. The former champion from Mexico was dominated and stopped by Mosley in nine one-sided rounds. Steward is under the belief that Margarito entered the ring that night with a lot of distractions because of the earlier incident in the dressing room.
"When he lost to Shane Mosley, you may say that part of his confidence may have been effected. You may say that his confidence before that came from the fact that he may have felt that his illegal hands gave him an advantage," Steward said.
"But, emotionally, the night that he fought Shane, he may have been all confused and mixed up because of what went on with the commission that night. By the time that the fight came up, I mean."
"But I have a lot more respect for him as a fighter than most people do, I think. It seems like everyone is saying that he got as far as he did because of the hand wraps. But as far as I'm concerned, he's always in unbelievable condition."
Lem Satterfield is the boxing editor at AOL FanHouse and the news editor at BoxingScene.com. To read more from Lem Satterfield, go to AOL FanHouse by Clicking Here .
