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Margarito Leaves Mess in His Trail
Posted Jan 26th 2009 8:00AM by Kevin Blackistone (author feed)
Filed Under: WBA, Boxing Video, HBO
To this day, it remains the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed in sports: Billy Collins Jr. vs. Luis Resto, June, 1983.
It was just supposed to be a little pre-fight entertainment to the main card on CBS that afternoon, Davey Moore against Roberto Duran. Collins was a promising young welterweight, undefeated at the time, while Resto wasn't much more than a journeyman.
But after 10 rounds, Collins was a bloody mess and vision-impaired for the rest of his life. And Resto was found to be a co-conspirator in a fight he helped turn into a crime.
Resto and his trainer, Panama Lewis, were found to have removed most of the padding from his gloves just before the fight, allowing Resto to pound Collins' face into pulp with his knuckles basically sheathed only in leather.
Resto and Lewis were convicted of assault and conspiracy, sent to prison and banned from boxing. Collins never fought again, dying nine months later in an automobile accident while suffering from depression.
We learned just about a year ago, however, that the vicious beating Resto and Lewis gave Collins was even more brutal than long thought. In a documentary film, Cornered, on that horrific crime released last April, Resto revealed that he and Lewis not only removed the padding from his gloves, but also soaked the tape used to wrap his hands in plaster of Paris, providing Resto with fists hardened in casts underneath his unpadded gloves. He may as well have been bludgeoning Collins with a bag of bricks.
You would think no one in boxing would dare do such a heinous thing again. But the Antonio Margarito-Shane Mosley welterweight title bout Saturday night from Los Angeles and broadcast on HBO began with the announcement that fight officials found what one of them described as plaster of Paris hidden in the wrapped hands of Margarito. They forced Margarito to have his hands taped again. The fight went on. Mosley won easily and in stunning fashion.
That wasn't poetic justice, however. It wasn't poetic justice that Margarito also lost a potential $11 million pay day to fight Manny Pacquiao. For had Margarito's attempt to cheat not have been suspected first by Mosley's keen-eyed trainer ****m Richardson, the fight world would have been in danger of witnessing another Resto-Collins tragedy.
What poetic justice would be in this case is to have the boxing licenses of Margarito and his handlers -- in the wake of Mosley snatching Margarito's belt -- suspended and an investigation begun immediately into exactly what happened.
How did this de****able act go undetected by fight officials? Why didn't the referee recognize the oddity that Richardson did? Why do I wonder now about the 4-to-1 odds Margarito carried into a fight against a consummate professional in Mosley who'd held world titles in three different weight classes in his career?
What poetic justice would be in this case is to have Margarito's $2.3 million purse for Saturday withheld, just like Mike Tyson's was after the bite fight, until and unless satisfactory answers are made to the above questions. What poetic justice would be in this case is to have Margarito and his handlers banned from boxing, just like Resto and Lewis were, if what we were told happened just before Saturday night's title fight turns out to be true.
We know that "trickeration," as Don King calls it, goes on from time to time in prizefighting, one of my favorite sports, nonetheless. It is part and parcel of the game. It isn't golf. Never has been.
But high jinks can't be tolerated when they threaten the livelihoods, if not lives, of the athletes.
What poetic justice would be in this case further is also to have Margarito's bloody victory last summer over then undefeated welterweight champion Miguel Cotto investigated and, if some potentially deadly shenanigans are discovered, have the fight annulled and Cotto restored as champion.
I couldn't help but start replaying Margarito's punishing beatdown of Cotto over and over again in my mind after HBO punch-by-punch announcer Jim Lampley made the announcement from ringside about what California fight officials said they found on Margarito's fist. Margarito didn't just make Cotto, who'd been dominating opponents coming into his Margarito meeting, bow down to him. Margarito turned Cotto, who wasn't necessarily known as a bleeder, into a bloody mess, not unlike what Resto did to Collins over a quarter-century ago.
Margarito was the underdog against Cotto. He was three years older at 30. He had five losses on his record, including a surprising loss to Paul Williams a year earlier.
But as their fight wore into the middle rounds, Margarito was cutting up Cotto's mouth and face. Blood was just about pouring from Cotto's mouth in the 11th round when he dropped to one knee and signaled that he'd had enough of what was hitting him. Just fists, I suspect he was certain then.
Who wasn't?
After Saturday night in the Staples Center, I'm not so sure, not so sure at all.
Kevin B. Blackistone is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse.com. He is a regular panelist on ESPN's sports-debate show, "Around The Horn,'' seen Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. ET. Blackistone currently serves as the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.
Posted Jan 26th 2009 8:00AM by Kevin Blackistone (author feed)
Filed Under: WBA, Boxing Video, HBO
To this day, it remains the most disgusting thing I've ever witnessed in sports: Billy Collins Jr. vs. Luis Resto, June, 1983.
It was just supposed to be a little pre-fight entertainment to the main card on CBS that afternoon, Davey Moore against Roberto Duran. Collins was a promising young welterweight, undefeated at the time, while Resto wasn't much more than a journeyman.
But after 10 rounds, Collins was a bloody mess and vision-impaired for the rest of his life. And Resto was found to be a co-conspirator in a fight he helped turn into a crime.
Resto and his trainer, Panama Lewis, were found to have removed most of the padding from his gloves just before the fight, allowing Resto to pound Collins' face into pulp with his knuckles basically sheathed only in leather.
Resto and Lewis were convicted of assault and conspiracy, sent to prison and banned from boxing. Collins never fought again, dying nine months later in an automobile accident while suffering from depression.
We learned just about a year ago, however, that the vicious beating Resto and Lewis gave Collins was even more brutal than long thought. In a documentary film, Cornered, on that horrific crime released last April, Resto revealed that he and Lewis not only removed the padding from his gloves, but also soaked the tape used to wrap his hands in plaster of Paris, providing Resto with fists hardened in casts underneath his unpadded gloves. He may as well have been bludgeoning Collins with a bag of bricks.
You would think no one in boxing would dare do such a heinous thing again. But the Antonio Margarito-Shane Mosley welterweight title bout Saturday night from Los Angeles and broadcast on HBO began with the announcement that fight officials found what one of them described as plaster of Paris hidden in the wrapped hands of Margarito. They forced Margarito to have his hands taped again. The fight went on. Mosley won easily and in stunning fashion.
That wasn't poetic justice, however. It wasn't poetic justice that Margarito also lost a potential $11 million pay day to fight Manny Pacquiao. For had Margarito's attempt to cheat not have been suspected first by Mosley's keen-eyed trainer ****m Richardson, the fight world would have been in danger of witnessing another Resto-Collins tragedy.
What poetic justice would be in this case is to have the boxing licenses of Margarito and his handlers -- in the wake of Mosley snatching Margarito's belt -- suspended and an investigation begun immediately into exactly what happened.
How did this de****able act go undetected by fight officials? Why didn't the referee recognize the oddity that Richardson did? Why do I wonder now about the 4-to-1 odds Margarito carried into a fight against a consummate professional in Mosley who'd held world titles in three different weight classes in his career?
What poetic justice would be in this case is to have Margarito's $2.3 million purse for Saturday withheld, just like Mike Tyson's was after the bite fight, until and unless satisfactory answers are made to the above questions. What poetic justice would be in this case is to have Margarito and his handlers banned from boxing, just like Resto and Lewis were, if what we were told happened just before Saturday night's title fight turns out to be true.
We know that "trickeration," as Don King calls it, goes on from time to time in prizefighting, one of my favorite sports, nonetheless. It is part and parcel of the game. It isn't golf. Never has been.
But high jinks can't be tolerated when they threaten the livelihoods, if not lives, of the athletes.
What poetic justice would be in this case further is also to have Margarito's bloody victory last summer over then undefeated welterweight champion Miguel Cotto investigated and, if some potentially deadly shenanigans are discovered, have the fight annulled and Cotto restored as champion.
I couldn't help but start replaying Margarito's punishing beatdown of Cotto over and over again in my mind after HBO punch-by-punch announcer Jim Lampley made the announcement from ringside about what California fight officials said they found on Margarito's fist. Margarito didn't just make Cotto, who'd been dominating opponents coming into his Margarito meeting, bow down to him. Margarito turned Cotto, who wasn't necessarily known as a bleeder, into a bloody mess, not unlike what Resto did to Collins over a quarter-century ago.
Margarito was the underdog against Cotto. He was three years older at 30. He had five losses on his record, including a surprising loss to Paul Williams a year earlier.
But as their fight wore into the middle rounds, Margarito was cutting up Cotto's mouth and face. Blood was just about pouring from Cotto's mouth in the 11th round when he dropped to one knee and signaled that he'd had enough of what was hitting him. Just fists, I suspect he was certain then.
Who wasn't?
After Saturday night in the Staples Center, I'm not so sure, not so sure at all.
Kevin B. Blackistone is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse.com. He is a regular panelist on ESPN's sports-debate show, "Around The Horn,'' seen Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. ET. Blackistone currently serves as the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.
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