Fernando Vargas is this months subject,here are his picks. Jab.Quartey Defence. De La Hoya Handspeed .Quartey Footwork.De La Hoya Chin.Mosley Smartest.De La Hoya Puncher.Trinidad* Skill.De La Hoya Overall.De La Hoya * Vargas believes Trinidad's hands were "improperly wrapped",he also said this fight shortened his career. What do you make of his opinions?
In the main, it's a fair assessment of his opposition, but I think the Tito Hand Wrap 'scandal' was a bit of a damp squib, which various people kept flinging lit matches at, in order to try and make something out of nothing. Vargas was soundly beaten; fairly and squarely by Trinidad, who had outlanded him, for most of the second half of the bout.
Didn't Nazim Richardson spot something was amiss when he acted for Hopkins and watched Tito's hands being wrapped? He insisted they be done again.
To the best of my knowledge, it was a case of Trinidad already having had one of his hands wrapped, by the time he and another (?) of Hopkins' camp went to observe. The insistence was that Tito's hand be unwrapped and the process start again. Something was noticed by Richardson, but this really amounts to him not being happy about the amount off tape and gauze being used. However, being savvy to the NYAC rules, he knew that it was enough for him to make a comment and cause a disruption, i.e. there are specific NYAC rules about extra gauze and tape, which depend on agreement between the respective trainers. Seems, from what I can gather, the Hopkins camp decided not to agree with the extra tape and gauze. No rules were broken per se and there were no claims made to the effect that the manner in which Trinidad's hands were being wrapped would have led to a material advantage (from the perspective of punch-impact) for Trinidad. That's my understanding.
Trinidad used an excessive amount of tape, which if you apply correctly can transform your the wraps into a hard surface. The extra padding of course is to cushion the blow.
Richardson said something bout it in a Ring article, I haven't got it to hand and I don't remember the details ,so I'm not qualified to comment further.
The New York Commission rules were referred to specifically in this case (However, I don't know what the specified amounts are for each material type). As to which commissions would have allowed greater use of tape and gauze - again - I wouldn't know. But, I do recall hearing Richardson saying something to the effect that Trinidad would have been able to do that in some other states, as well as drawing a distinct contrast between the Trinidad and Margarito cases. Doubling-up on the layers of tape, anywhere in their application, is generally, if not universally, disallowed. A universal rule is that there can't being any tape applied across the knuckle area of the wraps. Neither of these were highlighted as being the case with Trinidad's Wraps.
