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GRAPEVINE, Tex. — For Freddie Roach, wrapping the hands of boxers is a daily ritual, governed by rules and regulations, done quickly and efficiently, a simple form of art.
Manny Pacquiao will fight Margarito on Saturday. Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, will be allowed to watch Margarito’s hands being taped before the fight, but he said, “I don’t think it will be an issue.”
Margarito, right, was suspended after his fight against Shane Mosley in January 2009.
Early Thursday evening, inside the makeshift gym where he trained Manny Pacquiao in preparation for his fight against Antonio Margarito on Saturday at Cowboys Stadium, Roach removed his tools: scissors, gauze and tape. He started on the left wrist of a visitor, twisting the gauze around the thumb, inside the fingers.
As Roach taped the knuckle pad, fashioned from multiple layers of gauze, onto the left hand, he said: “If you’re going to hide something, this is the place. Would you feel it? Yes, you would. When you made a fist, 100 percent, you would know.”
Hand wraps have been around almost as long as boxing. When done properly, they help protect a fighter’s hands. When hardened or filled with illegal substances, they constitute boxing’s most heinous form of cheating, multiplying the force present in an already deadly weapon, the fist.
For this fight, more than in any bout in recent memory, hand wraps have been thrust into the spotlight. On HBO’s pay-per-view broadcast, wraps will receive their most extensive coverage ever, with cameras capturing Friday’s rules meeting and Saturday’s prefight examinations.
This is because Margarito, in a January 2009 fight against Shane Mosley, was caught hard-handed. Ever since, Margarito, whose record is 38-6, has denied any knowledge of the substance found within his knuckle pads before that fight, even as the California State Athletic Commission revoked his boxing license and others argued for a lifetime ban.
Roach said Margarito did not deserve to fight Pacquiao, with his 51-3-2 record, and make millions on boxing’s biggest stage. But Roach is not concerned with tampering. He was even granted two requests specific to this bout: he will be allowed to watch Margarito’s trainer, Robert Garcia, make the knuckle pad, and he will have someone stationed in Margarito’s dressing room from the moment he arrives.
“I don’t think it will be an issue,” Roach said, “because I’ll be in the dressing room, and I know all the tricks.”
Soon after the first boxer’s hand was wrapped, controversy followed. The trainer Teddy Atlas said boxing insiders debated whether fighters loaded gloves back in the 1920s, even enlarging grainy photographs. Once, while working with a young Mike Tyson, Atlas said officials inspected Tyson’s wraps after an eight-second knockout. Proven clean, Tyson held his fist high, and, according to Atlas, said, “Nothing here but gauze, flesh and bone.”
Fighters are notoriously finicky about the wrapping. Some refuse to let anyone other than their designated wrapper near their hands. Others, like Amir Khan, prefer a layer of tape before the first layer of gauze. Pacquiao wraps his own hands, as tightly as humanly possible, so tight he sometimes breaks the gauze.
Rules vary from state to state. In California, only gauze and surgical adhesive tape are allowed. In Nevada, trainers can apply only gauze, not tape, to skin. But some keys are universal, Roach said, like spreading the gauze evenly across the fingers, or protecting the knuckles with the right amount of padding.
The most notorious glove-related scandal in boxing involved Luis Resto and his trainer, Panama Lewis, in a fight against Billy Collins in the 1980s. Resto and Lewis went to jail after officials determined padding had been removed from Resto’s gloves. Roach called that, and adding something to the knuckle pad, boxing’s absolute worst crimes.
“That’s attempted murder,” Roach said. “That is way over the line. Nothing worse than that.”
Like Resto, Margarito found himself embroiled in scandal. Like Resto, Margarito insisted he knew nothing. The commission in California discovered inside the wraps a mixture of sulfur and calcium, two elements found in plaster of paris. Margarito’s then trainer, Javier Capetillo, took full responsibility, claiming he used the wrong wraps by accident, a notion Roach called laughable.
The California commission produced no evidence that Margarito knew his wraps were doctored, but it held him responsible regardless, in the same way professional sports leagues suspend players who claim they unknowingly took performance-enhancing drugs. Margarito still cannot box in California, but as of February, he can compete in any state that will grant him a license. Like Texas.
Despite cries of “Margo-cheat-o,” despite Pacquiao’s assertion that he knew, Margarito has remained steadfast.
“I try not to dwell on the negative,” he said. “I know people will ask the questions. Right now, all I am concentrating on is the fight.”
At first, Roach said that though he did not believe Capetillo acted alone, he assumed it was possible for a trainer to load a knuckle pad without his fighter’s knowledge. Then he tried to load one.
Roach said he picked one fighter who generally paid little attention to the wrapping process. One day, Roach added plaster and said nothing. “As soon as he closed his hand, he knew,” Roach said. “He could feel it.”
As Saturday’s fight approached, Roach studied Margarito’s last eight bouts more closely. He said that in several instances, cameras captured Margarito getting his hands wrapped, and each time, Margarito appeared to be paying close attention. Roach trains several boxers who mostly stare off into space while their hands are wrapped, but he did not see that when he watched Margarito.
After Margarito’s hands were retaped before their fight, Mosley dominated him, and in Margarito’s first fight after his license revocation, he delivered a lackluster win over a journeyman opponent. This struck boxing insiders as further proof that in his victories before the Mosley bout, Margarito also wore illegal padding. But that remains a tenuous supposition.
Despite his words, Margarito has not struck a remorseful tone of late. On HBO’s “24-7,” his team pretended to tape a slab of concrete on his hand, while Margarito covered his eyes and laughed. This week, a video surfaced in which Margarito and another boxer appeared to mock Roach, who has Parkinson’s disease.
“That shows what kind of people they are,” Roach said. “They act like he was never caught. He was caught. And they’re laughing about it like the joke’s on us.”
On Saturday, after protecting the hands of boxers for decades, hand wraps will receive their 15 minutes of fame. Roach learned and perfected his technique on a former girlfriend. He even cut her once by accident, hence the use of “former.”
As he cut the gauze from the hands of his visitor on Thursday, he promised, “I will be watching.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/sp...wt&twt=nytimes
Manny Pacquiao will fight Margarito on Saturday. Pacquiao’s trainer, Freddie Roach, will be allowed to watch Margarito’s hands being taped before the fight, but he said, “I don’t think it will be an issue.”
Margarito, right, was suspended after his fight against Shane Mosley in January 2009.
Early Thursday evening, inside the makeshift gym where he trained Manny Pacquiao in preparation for his fight against Antonio Margarito on Saturday at Cowboys Stadium, Roach removed his tools: scissors, gauze and tape. He started on the left wrist of a visitor, twisting the gauze around the thumb, inside the fingers.
As Roach taped the knuckle pad, fashioned from multiple layers of gauze, onto the left hand, he said: “If you’re going to hide something, this is the place. Would you feel it? Yes, you would. When you made a fist, 100 percent, you would know.”
Hand wraps have been around almost as long as boxing. When done properly, they help protect a fighter’s hands. When hardened or filled with illegal substances, they constitute boxing’s most heinous form of cheating, multiplying the force present in an already deadly weapon, the fist.
For this fight, more than in any bout in recent memory, hand wraps have been thrust into the spotlight. On HBO’s pay-per-view broadcast, wraps will receive their most extensive coverage ever, with cameras capturing Friday’s rules meeting and Saturday’s prefight examinations.
This is because Margarito, in a January 2009 fight against Shane Mosley, was caught hard-handed. Ever since, Margarito, whose record is 38-6, has denied any knowledge of the substance found within his knuckle pads before that fight, even as the California State Athletic Commission revoked his boxing license and others argued for a lifetime ban.
Roach said Margarito did not deserve to fight Pacquiao, with his 51-3-2 record, and make millions on boxing’s biggest stage. But Roach is not concerned with tampering. He was even granted two requests specific to this bout: he will be allowed to watch Margarito’s trainer, Robert Garcia, make the knuckle pad, and he will have someone stationed in Margarito’s dressing room from the moment he arrives.
“I don’t think it will be an issue,” Roach said, “because I’ll be in the dressing room, and I know all the tricks.”
Soon after the first boxer’s hand was wrapped, controversy followed. The trainer Teddy Atlas said boxing insiders debated whether fighters loaded gloves back in the 1920s, even enlarging grainy photographs. Once, while working with a young Mike Tyson, Atlas said officials inspected Tyson’s wraps after an eight-second knockout. Proven clean, Tyson held his fist high, and, according to Atlas, said, “Nothing here but gauze, flesh and bone.”
Fighters are notoriously finicky about the wrapping. Some refuse to let anyone other than their designated wrapper near their hands. Others, like Amir Khan, prefer a layer of tape before the first layer of gauze. Pacquiao wraps his own hands, as tightly as humanly possible, so tight he sometimes breaks the gauze.
Rules vary from state to state. In California, only gauze and surgical adhesive tape are allowed. In Nevada, trainers can apply only gauze, not tape, to skin. But some keys are universal, Roach said, like spreading the gauze evenly across the fingers, or protecting the knuckles with the right amount of padding.
The most notorious glove-related scandal in boxing involved Luis Resto and his trainer, Panama Lewis, in a fight against Billy Collins in the 1980s. Resto and Lewis went to jail after officials determined padding had been removed from Resto’s gloves. Roach called that, and adding something to the knuckle pad, boxing’s absolute worst crimes.
“That’s attempted murder,” Roach said. “That is way over the line. Nothing worse than that.”
Like Resto, Margarito found himself embroiled in scandal. Like Resto, Margarito insisted he knew nothing. The commission in California discovered inside the wraps a mixture of sulfur and calcium, two elements found in plaster of paris. Margarito’s then trainer, Javier Capetillo, took full responsibility, claiming he used the wrong wraps by accident, a notion Roach called laughable.
The California commission produced no evidence that Margarito knew his wraps were doctored, but it held him responsible regardless, in the same way professional sports leagues suspend players who claim they unknowingly took performance-enhancing drugs. Margarito still cannot box in California, but as of February, he can compete in any state that will grant him a license. Like Texas.
Despite cries of “Margo-cheat-o,” despite Pacquiao’s assertion that he knew, Margarito has remained steadfast.
“I try not to dwell on the negative,” he said. “I know people will ask the questions. Right now, all I am concentrating on is the fight.”
At first, Roach said that though he did not believe Capetillo acted alone, he assumed it was possible for a trainer to load a knuckle pad without his fighter’s knowledge. Then he tried to load one.
Roach said he picked one fighter who generally paid little attention to the wrapping process. One day, Roach added plaster and said nothing. “As soon as he closed his hand, he knew,” Roach said. “He could feel it.”
As Saturday’s fight approached, Roach studied Margarito’s last eight bouts more closely. He said that in several instances, cameras captured Margarito getting his hands wrapped, and each time, Margarito appeared to be paying close attention. Roach trains several boxers who mostly stare off into space while their hands are wrapped, but he did not see that when he watched Margarito.
After Margarito’s hands were retaped before their fight, Mosley dominated him, and in Margarito’s first fight after his license revocation, he delivered a lackluster win over a journeyman opponent. This struck boxing insiders as further proof that in his victories before the Mosley bout, Margarito also wore illegal padding. But that remains a tenuous supposition.
Despite his words, Margarito has not struck a remorseful tone of late. On HBO’s “24-7,” his team pretended to tape a slab of concrete on his hand, while Margarito covered his eyes and laughed. This week, a video surfaced in which Margarito and another boxer appeared to mock Roach, who has Parkinson’s disease.
“That shows what kind of people they are,” Roach said. “They act like he was never caught. He was caught. And they’re laughing about it like the joke’s on us.”
On Saturday, after protecting the hands of boxers for decades, hand wraps will receive their 15 minutes of fame. Roach learned and perfected his technique on a former girlfriend. He even cut her once by accident, hence the use of “former.”
As he cut the gauze from the hands of his visitor on Thursday, he promised, “I will be watching.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/13/sp...wt&twt=nytimes
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