Antonio Margarito: Gloves, Damages & Observations

Illegal rule violations in sports are something that loyal followers have had to deal with since the inception of professional athletics. Sadly, cheating in combat sports can lead to an opponent’s physical ruin or death, as was displayed in the Lewis/Resto scandal of 1983 which left Billy Collins with permanently damaged vision. Boxing and other combat sports obviously present potential serious harm due to it’s nature alone, consequently the cheaters of these games tend to be viewed as the most dastardly kind in any form of athletics. This is the reason why the entire career of Antonio ‘Concreto’ Margarito recently has been called into question, after he and his trainer were found to be deliberate ‘glove loaders’. What I personally find amusing are those who like to insist that because there is no direct evidence that Mr. Concreto used the plaster substance found in his gloves in earlier fights, such as his now controversial and speculation drenched upset over Miguel Cotto, that meaningful observations cannot be made and discussed. We certainly cannot call a rose red or a violet blue without definitive evidence, but we absolutely can and will go through an alternative study and observation in this article for the purpose of exploring the many cynical questions that are prevalent in the minds of boxing fans, due to these cheats being exposed (with a possible lineage in the midst). The silly notion that Mr. Antonio “Concreto” Margarito would have just begun his practice of turning his gloves into dangerous weapons, based on the idea that he and his bastard trainer were concerned about the abilities of Shane Mosley, and thereby didn’t utilize this practice in previous fights, is not only ignorant but goes against a lot of interesting and observable features in Margarito’s 4 years of fights leading up to the Mosley bout. You see, while Margarito has a granite chin, a loaded tank of stamina and a ridiculously high work rate, which always has the potential to do immense damage in accumulation even with a marginal amount of punching power, he is a proven arm puncher. By this I mean to say that he does not set up shots correctly from the legs, in fact I’ve never seen him throw anything but slow, uncoordinated arm punches which were only effective by smothering with volume… that did in turn made him very effective indeed. However, when you are dealing with an arm puncher, they classically do not do much in the way of facial and body damage due to the blows not being set up with proper technique and flow. So when we see examples of this very thing with Margarito, a lack of power and damage early on in his career, despite fighting in the same exact “face forward” smothering style, and then see extraordinary damage inflicted later on in fights against the opponents of the last few years, it’s more than suspect…it’s straight up in our faces that something is abnormal. Mr. Concreto had caused Sebastian Lujan to sustain a ghastly torn ear that was gushing blood like a geyser, Paul Williams to receive a very large gash on his face late despite Margarito landing very little and of course what he inflicted on a seemingly victimized Miguel Cotto. All from an arm puncher that puts no leverage or technique into shots? Well, it would make all of the sense in the world indeed if he was putting a ‘plaster like’ substance in his padding, such measures would turn those sloppy arm punches into devastatingly damaging blows. Given that what went down in the Cotto vs. Margarito fight is the special key factor in this side of the argument for me, I found it eerily similar to another certain classic fight that involved two legends, one of which one being a proven cheater and horrible human being outside of the ring to boot. Since most fans that are up to date with modern boxing watched the fight, we are not going to explain in great detail what happened when Miguel Cotto and Mr. Concreto met. It is however worth reviewing the results once more in terms of what damage Miguel Cotto sustained. Cotto received a busted lip, a fractured cheek bone, broken ribs and a strange puncture wound atop his forehead, not to mention a variety of bad cuts that resulted in him looking like a stuck, swollen pig. In addition there was loads of swelling. The previously mentioned puncture wound, may be the most telling feature of all, I have never seen a puncture wound of any type caused by blows from legitimately used boxing gloves. Furthermore, Cotto dominated the first half of the bout and only began to slow down later due to non-stop pressure from Concreto. He only received sustained consistent punishment to the head for about 3 rounds, leading up to the 11th in which the fight was halted. Again, all from an arm puncher?…. this must cynically be noted by us as ’strange’. While it is not strange for a fighter to be outclassed but gain a win by maintaining hefty pressure and therefore breaking the opponent down, it is very strange to inflict the amount of facial damage in particular dealt to Cotto in so few rounds of consistently landed blows. I’d like to also add that many of the arm punches did not even land flush. Ironically, this is not all that dissimilar from Meldrick Taylor vs. Julio Cesar Chavez, which saw Taylor dominating for 8 to 9 rounds. Chavez of course had some effective spots that included occasional bombs on Taylor, but he was not really laying down consistent blows until the last few rounds, resulting in a brutal but forever controversial victory for Chavez. Of course this is not an indictment on all pressure fighters, and we don’t allege that all pressure fighters load their gloves, those who are effective within the boundaries of the rules can use this style of ring strategy tactically and beautifully. This is simply an observation of the fact that Meldrick Taylor ended up having his career ruined by one hard fight, that had a few particular rounds of sustained punishment by an accumulation puncher, if not a great accumulation puncher unlike the earlier example, in “Concreto” Margarito. Taylor’s face didn’t look like he had been attacked by an assailant wielding a serrated blade like Cotto’s did, but he was rather busted up for what he received in the fight in all honesty. There is no evidence to support a thrown out notion after all of this time, but I believe personally that there was foul play in that fight. I also believe that a Chavez manipulation of gloves is very possible, and not dissimilar to the notion that “Concreto” Margarito had been using this bastard tactic for quite a while. It is worth noting that Julio Cesar Chavez was a cheater, especially in the area of the world of boxing’s politics. It is also worth noting that cheating of many forms in this game are ongoing and remain unchecked, all at the expense of the sport’s honest and rightful warriors. Please review both fights yourselves and see what you think.