Cotto-Top Rank relationship on the brink

Its a pretty good read about yesturdays events at the press conference. By Kevin Iole, http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news;_ylt=AmbYxXrcVhcRsAtIwuvfGxOUxLYF?slug=ki-cottoarum021909&prov=yhoo&type=lgns NEW YORK – Thursday was an extraordinary day in boxing, though not a punch was thrown in anger by an established star. The day began with a startling revelation in the Los Angeles Times that former welterweight champion Miguel Cotto is so angry with promoter Bob Arum and Top Rank over their defense of Antonio Magarito in the Jan. 24 hand wrap controversy, he’s considering a break with the company when his contract ends. It ended with Top Rank’s normally media-shy president, Todd duBoef, holding a news conference with primarily Puerto Rican reporters in an attempt to quell the growing discontent in Cotto’s camp. The events were the equivalent of Derek Jeter asking to be traded because he was unhappy with the Yankees’ support of Alex Rodriguez in his steroids case, and George Steinbrenner then coming out and cooing sweet-nothings to Jeter. Cotto had little to say Thursday after a surprisingly hard workout in the Bronx, two days in advance of his match at Madison Square Garden with unheralded Michael Jennings. Jennings wasn’t even mentioned Thursday in the seven-minute interview session with Cotto, which ended when Cotto appeared to get frustrated by a second question about Margarito. “You’re asking me the same questions again,” Cotto said, before abruptly leaving his stool and bolting for the shower. Cotto had already made his anger with Top Rank known, on a conference call last week in which Arum repeatedly and vociferously defended Margarito, as well as in numerous interviews with the Spanish-speaking media. Cotto’s ire was raised by Arum’s defense of Margarito, who had his license revoked by the California State Athletic Commission on Feb. 10 in Van Nuys, Calif., as a result of trainer Javier Capetillo having placed a hard knuckle pad in his hand wraps shortly before Margarito’s bout with Shane Mosley in Los Angeles. The commission, which also revoked Capetillo’s license, explained while doling out its penalty that the boxer is in charge of his team and is therefore responsible for its actions. The quick hearing, lack of a smoking gun proving Margarito had knowledge of Capetillo’s plan, and the 7-0 outcome enraged Arum, who accused the commission of racism. Arum also suggested he would defy the commission and take Margarito to fight in Mexico. That sowed the seeds of Cotto’s discontent. And as Arum strongly defended Margarito, Cotto began to seethe. His anger boiled over Wednesday when the Times, in its Thursday editions, reported that Cotto’s anger was such that it might cause him to break ties with the company that made him its only signee from the 2000 Olympics. “I’m just going to stay with them until the contract is finished,” Cotto told the Times’ Kevin Baxter. “After that, we’re going to sit with the company and talk.” Baxter asked Cotto if he could see himself fighting for another promoter and Cotto quickly said, “Yes.” Two days before a fight for the vacant welterweight title, Cotto did what he could to avoid the Margarito talk by gruffly declining to answer any more questions about the issue. About 90 minutes later, duBoef spoke carefully as he tried to contain the damage. He opened by referring to Top Rank as “for 45 years, the cornerstone of the sport.” He then spoke of Top Rank’s belief in maintaining the integrity of the rules. “I want to make a statement that is very clear,” duBoef said. “First of all, the integrity of the boxing sport is the most important thing that we live with. Nothing that participants, promoters corner men should ever jeopardize the integrity of the sport. Anybody who does, anybody who violates a rule, a regulation, should be penalized accordingly. “From the perspective of all the fighters we promote, we respect all of their opinions. We may disagree once in a while, but we all come together with the sport and its integrity.” He noted that Arum is an attorney and that Arum’s comments were made not to condone a fighter competing with loaded gloves but rather to address what he saw as an error in the legal process. DuBoef had a difficult job, because he needed to mollify Cotto while at the same time not appearing to abandon Margarito. And so, when he was asked if Top Rank would break its contract with Margarito if evidence surfaced that he had advance knowledge that Capetillo was going to put an illegal pad in his wraps, duBoef looked as if Cotto had belted him with a hook to the ribs. “I don’t know,” duBoef said. “I think if evidence came out that he had knowledge of it, I would support the revocation 100 percent.” When pressed why, in that event, he wouldn’t cut ties with Margarito as a statement that Top Rank didn’t want to be involved with a cheater, duBoef again stopped short of unequivocally saying yes. “I would say that if he had knowledge in advance that he was packing the gloves, I think that would be a very, very disastrous message for the sport and our association with him would be very much compromised,” duBoef said. “I don’t believe we’d want to associate ourselves with someone who was trying to compromise the sport and cheat.” Arum and duBoef plan to speak at length with Cotto after Saturday’s fight. Whether Cotto will be willing to listen is another issue that is not so clear. He didn’t flatly accuse Margarito of knowing that his hands had illegal pads in them when they were wrapped prior to the Mosley fight, but he came right to the edge of saying it. “All I know is that when everybody gets their hands wrapped, we know what’s in them,” Cotto said. “Every boxer knows if there is something different in their hands or not. And I think as a fighter, you would know if you have anything in there or not.” Cotto, who told Spanish-speaking reporters in Puerto Rico last week that he is “very angry with Top Rank,” also compared the Margarito-Capetillo case to the 1983 case involving trainer Panama Lewis and Luis Resto. Lewis pulled the padding out of Resto’s gloves and loaded his wraps for a fight against Billy Collins Jr. Resto brutally beat Collins that night and Collins suffered a torn iris and permanently blurred vision. Lewis and Resto went on trial in 1986 and were found guilty of assault, criminal possession of a weapon and conspiracy. They each served two-and-a-half years in prison. “You go in there in the ring thinking that you’re playing all on the same level, that you’re all doing the same thing,” Cotto said. “This is a sport. This is not a slaughterhouse. This is about fighting at the best of your abilities, the capacity that you have. … I just think that we should all go in the ring and be ready to fight with what we have, our own abilities and our preparation.” Cotto is taking the same firm stand against Top Rank that he’s taken against his opponents in fashioning a 32-1 record. He’s had a long and mostly amicable relationship with Top Rank, whom he frequently referred to in the past as “my company.” DuBoef said Thursday that when he went to visit Cotto in his Las Vegas hotel room the day after he was beaten by Margarito last year, there were tears in everyone’s eyes. “There’s a bond there,” duBoef said. But the bond is, at the least, cracking, and may be broken. And while fighters come and fighters go, Cotto is only 28 and in the prime of what looks like a Hall of Fame career. It would be tough to swallow losing him over a few inches of some gauze and, perhaps, some plaster of Paris. But it’s looking increasingly likely that Top Rank is moving inexorably down that path.