Attention Margarito defense attorneys. Here is your argument

THE TALE OF THE TAPING
Searching out Shane Mosley's trainer, Nazim Richardson, columnist Dave Larzelere finds a much more detailed account of the proceedings from January 24th's infamous hand-wrapping controversy.
January 31, 2008 - by Dave Larzelere | Photos by Will Hart

This past Saturday night at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, the boxing world was rocked by a stunning upset and a shocking controversy.

The upset was the work of Shane Mosley, who claimed Antonio Margarito's WBA welterweight title with a ninth-round TKO, a virtuoso performance that afterwards had much of the gathered boxing cognoscenti simply shaking their heads in awe.

"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 the controversy erupted before a single punch had been thrown. As first reported during the broadcast by HBO commentator Larry Merchant, "plaster-like" substances were removed from Margarito's hand-wraps. Prior to the fight the substances were discovered during an inspection by Mosley's trainer, Nazim Richardson, and then confiscated by Dean Lohuis, chief athletic inspector of the California State Athletic Commission. They now serve as exhibits A and B in the Commission's investigation into whether Margarito or members of his team conspired to load the fighter's gloves to increase his punching power. On Wednesday, the CSAC temporarily suspended the licenses of Margarito and his trainer, Javier Capetillo. Both Margarito and Capetillo have been ordered to appear at a hearing scheduled for February 10, 2009. Should they be found guilty by the Commission, they face a potentially long suspension or even banishment from the sport altogether.

Attempting to obtain a blow-by-blow of exactly what transpired that night in Margarito's dressing room at the Staples Center, I reached out to the three parties involved: Nazim Richardson, Margarito (through his co-manager, Sergio Diaz) and the California State Athletic Commission.

As a matter of course, the CSAC isn't talking. Following the suspension of Margarito and Capitello, its official position is that its members will offer no further comment on the matter until the investigation has been completed.

As for Sergio Diaz, he has not returned my phone calls. But he and Margarito's other co-manager, Francisco Espinoza, each have released statements to the press that they are confident that Margarito and Capitello will be cleared of any wrongdoing. Espinoza told the Mexican newspaper, Primera Hora, that the foreign substance in Margarito's wraps was merely gauze that had been prepared too long in advance and thus grown humid and hard. Margarito's only comment on the matter thus far came on Thursday, when he told ESPN that nothing but excess tape was removed from his wraps that night.

Nazim 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 soft."

 

well, it was dumb of me to go on long as i did. i just get so tired of hearing all this stuff, how everyone has somehow used wikipedia and interviews with other fighters and experts who are simply voicing their opinions to find the one definitive answer.

i wasn't in the dressing rooms. i wasn't even at the fight in person. i was watching at home 2,000 miles away. first i head of it was from jim lampley. so i have no authority to presume naz richardson was right or wrong. and the comission has really bungled this one because there is no reliable mechanism to deal with these types of issues (fighters being poisoned, wraps being loaded and so on) quickly or effectively. so any hope for a real answer gets lost. the comission has kind of handled it the way fans have...assumptions and misinformation.

i'd be happy to admit that margo was not up to anything and it just looked like it, if i saw some proof, any proof, at all, from an actual authority, with actual access to the evidence. i'd be just as happy to see margo banned for life, if i saw some definitive proof that he was guilty from an actual authority, with actual access to the evidence.

in the mean time, i'm not getting my hopes up.

 

Mosley's doctor :

According to Judd Burstein, the attorney for Mosley, Margarito had wet pads in the wrapping. Mosley's doctor, Robert Olvera, likened the material to the type of plaster used to make casts.

"It gets hard and mobile," said Olvera, who said he scratched the pad and "flakes of plaster of Paris" came off.



http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/sports_blog/2009/01/officials-found.html

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Richardson :

"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."

http://www.hbo.com/boxing/events/2009/0124_margarito_mosley/columns/nazim_profile.html

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Shane Mosley :

Boxingtalk: What was your reaction to Antonio Margarito and his trainer's suspension? Were you surprised they were found guilty? "Well I pretty much knew that was the case that he had plaster in his gloves because my doctor was the one that checked it. I knew that already because my doctor had told me that he had worked with that type of plaster before and there is no way he would mistake it for something else."

 

Steward says Lewis wraps are still soft after all that time.

Why did Margos wraps get hard? according to his own trainer/manager.

 

[/quote]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 soft."[/quote]


not for nothin', but, if those samples were sealed in an air-tight container or an even largely air tight container and stored at room temperature, they would not only NOT harden if the materials in question were used, they could, depending on the composition of the materials actually soften because immersion in residual, trapped gases from sulfurized calcium or any number of other organic and synthetic materials used to make various types of plaster forming substances can halt or partially reverse the bonding (and so the hardening) that occurs when such substances are wet, come in contact with an absorbant environment and then oxidize by full or partial contact with oxygen.

these are the types of questions that need to be answered.

i am not saying manny steward is lying...or that margo is guilty or innocent, but there are too many really significant unknowns here to make any kind of proper judgment.

 

OMFG!!!!

I'm not lying that I did NOT know that, and to an uneducated person on Rubio's condition, it really did look to me like a "powder". It seemed to wear off after some rounds, but that was prolly' just getting sweaty?

My bad to Rubio and his fans, I had no idea.

 

"plaster of Paris Sales have went up in mexico tho"

 

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 soft."[/quote]


not for nothin', but, if those samples were sealed in an air-tight container or an even largely air tight container and stored at room temperature, they would not only NOT harden if the materials in question were used, they could, depending on the composition of the materials actually soften because immersion in residual, trapped gases from sulfurized calcium or any number of other organic and synthetic materials used to make various types of plaster forming substances can halt or partially reverse the bonding (and so the hardening) that occurs when such substances are wet, come in contact with an absorbant environment and then oxidize by full or partial contact with oxygen.

these are the types of questions that need to be answered.

i am not saying manny steward is lying...or that margo is guilty or innocent, but there are too many really significant unknowns here to make any kind of proper judgment.[/quote]

Just out of curiosity are you a Professor of science?

 

Steward kept them in a 'ziploc' bag, though.

If they were protected from the elements then maybe they kept their moistness/softness?

 

doesn't anyone ever get tired of this ****atsch

why not make a poll now asking if margo is innocent, i'd bet people will still say no he is a cheater plain and simple. That shows how much failure a thread this is, not very convincing. Wake me up when margo is really innocent:dead:tired

 

Again, reference sweetscientists post on the subject and it will answer those questions for you.

 

Margarito cheated...get over it

 

i didnt see where shane said they were hard but richardson saying "brick hard" and the doctor scratching and making chalk is a clear indication that the plaster had cured and therefore would be very easy to determine if in fact it was plaster or just trace material.
the only explaination i can think of for the commish to hide the fact that it was plaster would be to allow margo to return as soon as possible.
no matter which side of the debate you are on, if you are comfortable with where the matter has come to rest then you should never cry about the shady side of boxing. just accept it like you are accepting this.