Antonio "toney" margarito

I've long believed Margarito was hard done by, and my position hasn't changed with any advance in the evidence put forward. I've looked high and wide on the internet, and if anyone has conflicting information please let me know, but the "forensic" information used to condemn Margarito is seriously flimsy; all I can see is there was an objection (based on visual appearance) in the pads Margarito used vs Mosley; there are some (completely inconsequential) observations that these pads looked "powdery"; and elemental analysis of these pads by XRF proved the pads contained sulphur and calcium. My contention is that the visual appearance of the pads is by and large meaningless, and the presence of calcium and sulphur in the pads doesn't indicate any performance advantage unless the amount was beyond a particular threshold (and to the best of my knowledge this information was never provided.) The chemical analysis of the pads is seriously low rent, and there was never retroactive reproduction of the evidence to prove that the chemical analysis of the handwraps is indicative of a composition that would provide a performance advantage.

 

Shane Mosley is one of my all time favorites, and thats one of my favorite performances of his… with that said….

I feel the same way you do.. He’s an under appreciated fighter and gets a lot of hate for something he likely had nothing to do with, and may not have been an advantage anyway as @peter_uk mentioned above…


While I of course didn’t have the experience of Margarito, I had a few dozen fights and never gave a **** how my coach wrapped my hands. I’d punch my palms a few times and if it didnt feel too tight/loose and there was no tape sticking I would think nothing else of it.

Also IIRC the second Cotto fight seemed like it may have went the same way as the first if it wasn’t stopped. Marg was landing harder shots and Cotto was back pedaling and sucking air.

 

I never bought into the hand wrap bull****, other than what happened prior to the Mosley fight. Whatever was in the wraps, although rightly illegal in a zero tolerance sense, played no part in Margarito’s career, and had nothing to do whatsoever in his destruction of Cotto. Nazim Richardson was a good trainer, but had the morals of a ghetto carnival barker. The Mosley wraps were technically illegal and deserved discipline, and with the legit asswhipping Shane gave him, and Cotto using the controversy to justify his brutal loss, Arum and TPTB made Antonio a scapegoat.
The image of rugged, blue collar Mexican, who didn’t speak English, didn’t have a huge fan base, who was getting older, just suffered a crushing defeat AND was caught up in a hand wrapping scandal, just wasn’t worth effort the to rehabilitate.

 

with or without bricks?

 

Fun fact: After the Mosley fight Margarito never had another knock out victory.

 

sulphur and calcium are both found in ordinary human sweat. the pads they claimed were altered are the 2" square medical pads that are wafer thin. dipping it in plaster would give it the strength and hardness of a potato chip. margo was pummeling guys with potato chips in his gloves. he might have killed someone if a corn chip or tortilla chip got in there.

 

For some reason, I never thought Margo was trying to fight with hardened gauze. Never bought into it.

 

He only fought one fight with 2 good eyes after that against a guy whos never been ko’d. There were too many factors to him after the scandal to really know. My take is if he had been guilty he would not have boxed again.

 

Do people think Margarito went his while career never getting his wraps checked?

After the cotto fight he shook hands with people, got his hand raised, embraced cotto. Nobody noticed?

 

He's always been a fighter I liked, and I believe he was the victim of being on the wrong side of power and money.
The handwraps incident was akin to the support for the ICE agent shooting the lady - completely implausible but somehow that is the narrative from the top, and eventually accepted. Unfortunately for Margarito, he was assumed guilty and unable to prove his innocence.

 

@C.J. would have approved of this thread

And all he had was a used gauze no plaster

 

it wasnt just accepted, it was promoted by a whole gang of posters. everything said in this thread was said back then too, but it wasnt about reality. every floyd, pac, and cotto fanboy, wouldnt hear it. most still wont.

 

He’s one of my fave fighters and one that pops into my head now and again.
when Carl froch interviews people, he often asks, “if you got into a brawl in a pub/bar, who would you want next to you?”
Tony comes to my mind.

did Michelle leave him? Damn…They were close too.

regarding the hand wraps…they weren’t on his chin, and that chin was one of TBE

 

To be fair, he moved up in weight. Margaritos biggest asset was his size, and moving up only 1 weight class diminished this greatly.
Also, the guys Margarito fought after Cotto were all pretty though.

And then there was his little comeback at the age of 37. He looked seriously washed up in those last 3 fights, so no wonder those went the distance.