Are you there, God? It's me, Margarito (Antonio, that is)

That is, Gods, plural - the Boxing Gods. That is to say, the members of the BWAA holding the keys to Canastota.

So...I want to be fair, here.

I've been a vocal critic of Margarito, that's no secret. I think at his peak he was hyped up far beyond his abilities, made into some kind of boogie monster, a one-man individual murderer's row - the modern Charley Burley, if you will. El Presidente of the "Who Needs Em" Club, allegedly. Ducked by Mayweather, among others, according to a sizable cross-section of the boxing community. I never bought a word of that.

Having said all that, he did accomplish a fair deal and was in fact a very capable and dangerous h2h welter. He possessed a unique triangulation of qualities rarely seen before or since that allowed him to overachieve given his fairly low hand speed and how limited his boxing skills remained for the entirety of his pro career (which came on the heels of a paltry 21 amateur bouts, and started in his teens, involving a lot of picking things up on the job with a tough early learning curve) - incredible size for someone able to routinely make the limit of 147lb, heavy-handed, iron chin, blistering work-rate and the gas tank required to keep it up...

Here is my question: HOF?

Margarito will be eligible as of the next ballot, after the upcoming one for 2016. (so, the ballot for 2017, for which voting will commence next year - to be potentially, at the earliest, inducted two ceremonies from now as the Induction Weekend for 2015 is yet to occur, June 11th-14th)

I have in the past balked at the mention of Margarito as IBHOF material. On merit, he just isn't good enough to get in, by my estimation. However, the case is there for him on strength of the argument that guys with lesser résumés & credentials are in there already...especially some of those from this year's class.

Gatti? Bowe? Mancini? Tszyu? Hamed? While most would consider them all greater than Margarito, if you actually stack the résumés side by side, would it be unfair to dismiss him out-of-hand? It might. Which of those names boasts W's over two surefire 1st-ballot Hall of Fame inductees? Bowe has Evander Holyfield x2, but that's still just one Hall of Famer beaten. Hamed, well, he lost when he fought a HOF'er. As for Boom-Boom, well some may say that José Luis Ramírez belongs in the Hall, but he isn't there. Even if he were, do W's over him and past-expiration-date Chacon outweigh W's over prime Cotto & Martinez?

Granted, of course, if you strip away Junito & Maravilla the Tijuana Tornado's résumé becomes that of a decent but unexceptional dime-a-dozen-in-any-era titlist.

His best assemblage of results after those vacillates between mediocrity and boldly asterisked for various reasons.

Stoppages of Sebastian Andres Lujan, Hercules Kyvelos, 6 Heads Lewis x2, Kermit Cintron x2, old Golden Johnson, and old Frankie Randall are nice, but none of them are special. (in spite of the hype Cintron did temporarily receive, wrongly projected by many pundits to be a future elite on his way up)

Then you have decisions over Danny Perez x2, Joshua Clottey, and Roberto Garcia.

All in all, good record. 38-8 (27), with two reigns as world titlist at 147lbs - the WBO successfully defended seven times before the Paul Williams loss, the IBF & WBA captured but never defended in the ring. In sum, 10-5-0-1 (6) in world title bouts.

Dig a little deeper, and there is plenty of room to doubt the HOF worthiness in that record. Clottey was actually schooling Margarito in the first several rounds until sustaining a momentum-shifting hand injury. Roberto Garcia chased after Margarito all night, suffering for his even slower hand and foot speed as Margarito played against type and fought like a cutie-pie boxer for the first and only time in his career, wary of Garcia's big punch. Johnson & Randall were old men. Kyvelos had a pretty unbeaten record but the best stuff on it was a close decision over Fitz Vanderpool and one more over Charles Whittaker...and he never did anything following the Margarito blowout. Cintron was better than Kyvelos, but was still overrated and hyped up without having done much when Margarito stole his zero. Margarito proved susceptible to many different styles being able to beat him, in a variety of ways. He was no h2h monster in truth.

That said, you can't take away The Battle. Miguel Cotto was undeniably smack in the middle of his prime. Margarito broke him down and stopped him, legitimately (unless you want to surmise about the presence of hardening agents in his wraps...) and that warrants a great deal of credit, and no excuse-making on the part of Cotto apologists. Cotto is going in the Hall, first ballot. Then you have Sergio Gabriel Martinez, who some might argue was "green" when he was mauled by Margarito in a pressure clinic - but Martinez was three years older, had been in the pros four years himself and had only seven fewer pro bouts than Margarito - who, remember, had only that measly 18-3 amateur run and hit the ground running in the pro ranks in his teens (accounting for his first three defeats).

Cotto and Martinez were both in their athletic primes, if not their h2h peaks (and Cotto was arguably in that as well) - a distinction some fans have difficulty recognizing.

It goes without saying that he is finished in the ring, although people his age have indeed made comebacks. The state of eye in the Cotto rematch and the fact that he now seems content to manage & train other boxers, like his nephew Hanzel Martinez and former lightweight champ Miguel Ángel Vázquez, leads one to believe that he is going to leave well enough alone, letting his legacy (and health) stand as-is.

So, are the pair of them, packaged along with the rest of his, we'll say B+ résumé, enough to lend him consideration? :think Those accomplishments, stacked against his many losses? (to, Cotto & Martinez aside, every world class elite he faced)

How much due weight do you give the myth - or reality - of him being avoided in his prime? Maybe you don't agree that Mayweather feared him (instead buying Mayweather's own explanation that Margarito never raised his profile enough to make dollars & sense) but there is a case to be made that Ricardo Mayorga, for instance, chose the high road - or Don King did on his behalf - when Margarito blatantly called him out for unification. Certainly there were some who didn't care in the least for Margarito's ratio risk to reward and wanted no part of his grueling style, which could be physically damaging even to full-size welterweights, let alone smaller ones.

I'm willing to be persuaded, if anyone cares to expostulate or proffer a convincing supplication.

 

I'm seeing a lot of short answers...

 

I'd like to, as much as possible, omit speculation about the presence of "brick fists" outside the one documented bout with Shane Mosley, which is the only time he was ever caught.

If you are convinced beyond the shadow of any doubt that he utilized illegal cement type substances in other matches, and feel that it significantly impacts his legacy and standing, that's fine, but all we can do here is review the facts of his résumé - and outside the Mosley incident there is no factual documented evidence of his cheating in any other instance. So let's please leave that aside so it doesn't become the focal point here.

I'd like to have a discussion if possible centered around the assumption that his other victories were, in the absence of any contrary evidence, clean & on the up-and-up. This may come as surprising to many, given my usual stance on Margarito, but I do want to give him a fair shake here and scrutinize whether his résumé does indeed (on that assumption of innocence outside when Bro Naz busted him that one time) bear examination as Hall-worthy.

 

For me, the major bugaboo that drags his résumé down is that I don't rate the stoppages of Cintron very highly. I never rated Kermit the way some did. He was a transparent hype job from the start, IMO. So those don't hold a lot more water than any of Margarito's other secondary and tertiary victories.

That said, I think my reticence to give him as much credit for the Cintron knockouts as most do is balanced out by the fact that I actually give him a lot more credit for the stoppages of Martinez & Cotto than most. Both were undefeated, confident, very talented specimens in their athletic primes, and he broke them both down inside the distance. True, in the early going Cotto did outbox him - but he ultimately did succumb. Pressure busts pipes, and that is Margarito's game. He knew he was bigger and stronger than Cotto and executed his game plan to a T, and was the rightful victor w/ no excuses (again, leaving aside speculation of possible cheating).

Those are big-time W's, above reproach or discrediting - especially Cotto. Having even one stoppage over the likes of an unbeaten Cotto or Martinez is special to have on your résumé. Margo has both of them.

Question is, does that pair, along with a bunch of mediocre stuff rounding out the rest of his W column, and taking many a pretty nasty pasting in the L column, get him into Canastota? :think

Also, does anyone still feel he was "robbed" against PTP? That might shade opinions, as well.

 

Wrote that post @ mine, while doing my afternoon orders.

Step up your game, son. :bananamaniac