HBO: Miguel Cotto 33-1*

Although Miguel Cotto lost his perfect record against Antonio Margarito last July, subsequent controversies are giving him a chance to be undefeated again, at least in the court of public opinion. June 10, 2009 - by Eric Raskin | Photos by Chris Farina/Top Rank It's the most dreaded punctuation symbol in sports: the asterisk. We love sports in large part because there are clear-cut winners and losers; there are records and numbers that matter. And the asterisk undoes all of that. It announces, "The value of these numbers is highly subjective. Give them credence at your own risk." For Miguel Cotto, however, the asterisk is a friend. The tiny, six-pointed star just might serve to restore his reputation. Cotto enters his fight against Joshua Clottey this Saturday night at Madison Square Garden with a record of 33-1. When Cotto surrendered in the 11th round against Antonio Margarito last summer, it was all so straight-forward: A promising, undefeated fighter met his match and succumbed. It happens all the time; nothing out of the ordinary. One fight later, the wraps trainer Javier Capetillo attempted to put on Margarito's hands for his bout against Shane Mosley were confiscated. They were later determined to have contained sulfur and calcium, two ingredients used to make plaster of Paris. Both Margarito and Capetillo had their licenses revoked for a minimum of one year. But this wasn't just a punishment that affected the men's futures. It affected their pasts as well. Suddenly all of Margarito's prior fights were shrouded under the suspicion of foul play—none more so than his TKO of Cotto. The Puerto Rican had boxed his way to an early lead, but the accumulated effect of Margarito's punches gradually told on his face, and Cotto had to twice take a knee. It's quite possible that nobody other than Margarito and Capetillo will ever know whether the Tijuana native won that fight legitimately or not. But all of the circumstantial evidence adds up to enough uncertainty to discuss putting an asterisk beside that lone loss on Cotto's record. "It's really a weird situation where you can't say he's undefeated anymore, but you can't say that he was beaten fairly," opined veteran bilingual broadcaster Bernardo Osuna, who provided ringside analysis for Cotto's comeback fight against Michael Jennings. "To me, this one gets a footnote. Maybe not an asterisk, but a footnote. There's a qualification next to it, where you'd say he suffered this loss against Antonio Margarito by knockout, and then down at the bottom you'd note that there was always the question of whether his gloves were loaded." The concept of the defeated-yet-undefeated fighter is not a new one. Hall of Famer Pernell Whitaker lost his undefeated record less than four years into his pro career, but the decision Jose Luis Ramirez was given over "Sweet Pea" was so outrageous that most of the boxing public thought of Whitaker as having a zero at the end of his record for nine more years. Current lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez lost in his pro debut in 1993, via first-round disqualification for a headbutt. Marquez maintains to this day that the foul was accidental and the result preposterous. And he maintained an unofficial reputation as an undefeated fighter until he lost again—via controversial decision to Freddie Norwood—six years later. Current junior welterweight prospect Victor Ortiz now finds himself in a similar situation, with his lone loss coming by disputed first-round DQ. Then there's Gabriel Ruelas, who lost his "0" in a particularly painful manner. In 1990,Ruelas was 21-0 when opponent Jeff Franklin locked Ruelas' right arm under his own left arm and broke Ruelas' elbow so badly that five screws were needed to repair it. It was a fluke injury, and the result was a TKO loss for Ruelas. "It's really a weird situation where you can't say he's undefeated anymore, but you can't say that he was beaten fairly." —boxing broadcaster Bernado Osuna One of the most interesting aspects of having an asterisk attached to a first defeat is how it affects the comeback process. Not only might Cotto regain his confidence just by thinking he was beaten unfairly, but taking it a step farther, the thought that a top opponent felt he had to cheat to beat him could actually serve to swell Cotto's ego. Whether or not Margarito actually used loaded leather against him is immaterial; if Cotto believes he did, then that speeds up the mental healing process. HBO analyst Larry Merchant believes the Clottey fight could be exactly what Cotto needs to complete the mental recovery that began earlier this year with the Mosley-Margarito controversy and Cotto's predictably easy win over Jennings. "In Clottey, Cotto is fighting a Margarito-type fighter—tough, sturdy, one of the top fighters in the welterweight division," Merchant said. "People questioned Cotto's grit because of the way he lost to Margarito, so maybe beating Clottey is a way to prove himself in that regard. I think that all adds to the drama of the fight. If Cotto should win in a solid, clear and maybe even dominant way, then he still stands a chance of being the star that people thought he was becoming." In an additional twist, Clottey's only defeat in the last nine years also came at the hands (and whatever other substances might have resided close to them) of Margarito. But the manner in which he lost—by decision, without getting beaten up, largely due to his own hand injuries—somehow doesn't make him asterisk-worthy. Whether anyone deserves an asterisk, really, is a subjective matter. The asterisk denotes that there's room for interpretation. Should Cotto be thought of as an undefeated fighter heading into Saturday's fight? What matters most is whether Cotto thinks of himself in those terms. If he does, it should help his chances of getting past his dangerous opponent and emerging from the fight with some claim to the phantom zero on the end of his record.