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****m Richardson's account of the evening, however, contradicts that assertion and also calls into question that of Espinoza. As Richardson tells the story, when he entered Margarito's dressing room, the "pads" had been prepared (the thick gauze wrapping that goes over the knuckles), but the wrapping process had not yet begun. They were just beginning to work on Margarito's right hand when Richardson arrived.
"They started putting tape on the wrist and the thumb on the right hand," Richardson said, "and they were putting too much tape directly onto the skin. No gauze, just putting tape directly onto the skin on the wrist of the right hand."
Taping directly to the skin is against the rules, so Richardson protested. When the Commission representative who was present said that he was fine with what they were doing, Richardson asked that Dean Lohuis, the Commission's chief athletic inspector, be brought into the room. He says Lohuis agreed that there was too much tape being applied directly to Margarito's skin and had them rewrap it. It took them two more tries to appease both Richardson and Lohuis. The real shocker, however, occurred when they moved on to the fighter's left hand.
"When he started on the left hand," Richardson says, "I asked to feel the cushion (the pad) before he put it on the knuckle. I asked the deputy from the Commission, 'Did you squeeze the cushion on the right hand?' And he said no. So Margarito put the right hand up and said, 'Go ahead you can feel it,' and I said, 'No, let me squeeze this cushion before he puts it on the left hand.'"
"So when I squeezed the cushion, it was brick hard. I said, 'This is not right.' I asked the deputy to feel it, so he felt it, and he said, 'It feels all right to me.' I said, 'No, that thing is too hard.' So I asked the commissioner (Lohuis) to feel it, and he said, 'Yeah, that does feel hard.' So he peeled it back, and when he peeled it back, a square block of old wet gauze fell out that was COVERED WITH PLASTER. And it had an old dried-up blood stain on it."
At this point, Richardson says, it was almost time for Margarito to make his walk to the ring, and the trainer met with resistance from Margarito's people and also from the Commission's representatives about unwrapping and inspecting the pad on the already wrapped right hand.
"I asked them to unwrap the right hand," Richardson told me, "because I thought they had checked the pad on the right hand. But they were arguing about that. So I said, 'Listen, if he fights the fight and we find something in it, what would happen then?' And the commissioner said, 'You're right - unwrap the right hand.'"
When they did, a block of gauze was discovered in the right-hand pad similar to the one that had fallen out of the left. Initially, Richardson seized the evidence himself.
"I took the two pieces, and I told the commissioner that I wasn't giving them back to [Margarito's people]. I said, 'I'm only giving these to Shane's lawyer.' So I took the two pieces when we went to Shane's room to wrap Shane's hands. The lawyer came over, and the commissioner came with us, and Shane's doctor [Robert Olvera] was there. The doctor scratched one of the pieces, and it chalked up. He said, 'This is the same plaster we use to make casts in the hospital.'"
At that point, Richardson says he took the pieces back from Olvera and then surrendered the evidence to Lohuis for investigation by the Commission. The pieces were placed in a box, which was sealed with tape and signed by Mosley's lawyer, Judd Burstein - but not before Richardson ordered several people with camera-phones to snap photos of the two blocks of gauze.
When I asked Richardson if he thought that Margarito would have gained an edge against Mosley if the pads had been allowed to stand as they were, he laughed. "With the kind of condition we had Shane in," he said, "I figure if Margarito had a stick in his hand he wouldn't have beaten Shane that night."
"But it definitely would have given him an advantage, an advantage to the point of danger. And, look, I don't know for sure that Margarito knew what was in the pads. But I know for a fact that the trainer had to know. Cause he prepared the pads, so I know he knew what was in them."
It's damning account of the incident, and one wonders if and when Margarito or his handlers are going to counter it with a detailed one of their own. They are of course innocent until proven guilty by the Commission, and it's likely that they are saying as little as possible to protect themselves in the investigation. But in the absence of a thorough account from Margarito, the court of public opinion has run rampant with speculation on countless websites and blogs.
Meanwhile, the explanations offered by Margarito's camp thus far have been less than satisfying. Both Richardson and Mosley's doctor are on record as saying that the gauze blocks that came out of Margarito's pads were hard and "plaster-like," and the CSAC has deemed them "foreign substances" worthy of a temporary suspension, all calling into doubt the fighter's recent claim that this is only a matter of excess tape.
As for the claim by Margarito's co-manager, Francisco Espinoza, that it was gauze that had grown humid and started to harden of its own accord, I ran that explanation past HBO commentator and Hall-of-Fame trainer, Emanuel Steward. He didn't find it plausible in the least. As proof of his point, he mentioned that he was about to auction off the hand-wraps that Lennox Lewis used in his fights with Mike Tyson and Hasim Rahman. For more than six years, Steward has kept them in a Ziploc bag. If damp gauze ever were inclined to harden over time, one would expect that those wraps would be stiff as boards by now.
"But that material," Steward told me, "is still softLast edited by SlickRikki; 02-05-2009, 04:16 PM.Comment
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Wait untill the Boricuas get in here, they know the behind the scenes info. They get form the same source that said Margarito was on steroids.Comment
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