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First Blood! Margarito-Oscar Rivalry Began in Sparring
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 11:24 am
By Scoop Malinowski
As Antonio Margarito, the new kingpin of the Welterweight division, savors and celebrates the most important and spectacular triumph of his 15-year career, and attempts to lure the Golden Man Oscar De La Hoya into a passing of the torch Chavez-De La Hoya type HBO PPV showdown later this year, we thought it was an appropriate time to re-tell the story about the infamous Margarito-De La Hoya sparring sessions.
“I did spar with Oscar but I used him as my sparring partner,” Margarito told me about two years ago, of their sparring sessions from about four years ago. “Oscar and his trainer wanted me to be their dummy. They would tell me to let him hit me, not to throw any punches. Then I would be told to throw at him, but not hard, while he was throwing hard.”
Clearly, Oscar was well aware of the extraordinary punching power of Margarito and was uncomfortable to deal with it’s consequences. But Margarito is a champion, he does not possess the typical ’sparring partner mentality’ and refused to be Oscar’s dolt.
“I’m a person with a short temper, all this was only making me furious. So, naturally, I would let go of my punches with power. On two different occasions I made him bleed. Once from the nose, and the other time from the ear. Unfortunately, both times they sent me back down.”
Now justice has been served and Margarito is the new WBA Welterweight champion. And boxing has annointed a new superstar who displays many fine attributes in and out of the ring. How quickly we can forget the boring business fights of the previous self-proclaimed best welterweight who recently ran away to hide in a phony retirement so as to 100% evade the expectations to face the Cotto-Margarito winner.
And now Oscar De La Hoya has the hard decision to make: Do the honorable thing for the natural progression of the sport by fighting the next great Mexican icon heir apparent, as Julio Cesar Chavez did for Oscar in the 1990’s. Or handpick a meaningless/circus/business exhibition against Manny Pacquiao.
I think all boxing fans would prefer the story lines and intrigue of Oscar vs. Margarito, how about you? The Pac Man vs. Ricky Hatton makes more sense.
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 11:24 am
By Scoop Malinowski
As Antonio Margarito, the new kingpin of the Welterweight division, savors and celebrates the most important and spectacular triumph of his 15-year career, and attempts to lure the Golden Man Oscar De La Hoya into a passing of the torch Chavez-De La Hoya type HBO PPV showdown later this year, we thought it was an appropriate time to re-tell the story about the infamous Margarito-De La Hoya sparring sessions.
“I did spar with Oscar but I used him as my sparring partner,” Margarito told me about two years ago, of their sparring sessions from about four years ago. “Oscar and his trainer wanted me to be their dummy. They would tell me to let him hit me, not to throw any punches. Then I would be told to throw at him, but not hard, while he was throwing hard.”
Clearly, Oscar was well aware of the extraordinary punching power of Margarito and was uncomfortable to deal with it’s consequences. But Margarito is a champion, he does not possess the typical ’sparring partner mentality’ and refused to be Oscar’s dolt.
“I’m a person with a short temper, all this was only making me furious. So, naturally, I would let go of my punches with power. On two different occasions I made him bleed. Once from the nose, and the other time from the ear. Unfortunately, both times they sent me back down.”
Now justice has been served and Margarito is the new WBA Welterweight champion. And boxing has annointed a new superstar who displays many fine attributes in and out of the ring. How quickly we can forget the boring business fights of the previous self-proclaimed best welterweight who recently ran away to hide in a phony retirement so as to 100% evade the expectations to face the Cotto-Margarito winner.
And now Oscar De La Hoya has the hard decision to make: Do the honorable thing for the natural progression of the sport by fighting the next great Mexican icon heir apparent, as Julio Cesar Chavez did for Oscar in the 1990’s. Or handpick a meaningless/circus/business exhibition against Manny Pacquiao.
I think all boxing fans would prefer the story lines and intrigue of Oscar vs. Margarito, how about you? The Pac Man vs. Ricky Hatton makes more sense.
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