When
it was all said and done, after much debate and consternation, the December 3rd bout between Antonio Margarito and WBA
junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto- the grudge match of the year- will
take place at the very same venue where it was scheduled from the very
beginning, the famed and newly renovated Madison Square Garden.
For about a week or so, it seemed as if the New York State Athletic Commission was intent on
putting the kibosh on this fight, with concerns over the condition of
Margarito's right eye, which went through multiple surgeries in the wake of his
bout last November versus Manny Pacquiao.
On Tuesday afternoon,
after Margarito was flown in from Mexico to undergo examinations from a doctor
selected by the NYSAC on Monday, he was
given the green light to face Cotto in their jurisdiction.
Of
this ordeal, where Top Rank was left in limbo and forced to make contingency
plans, including possibly staging the fight in Denver or Phoenix, a beleaguered
yet relieved Bob Arum told Maxboxing, “It's been terrible. It's been very, very
hard. Hard on everybody and we've lost a lot of time that we could've devoted
to promoting. But people tell me that THIS was the promotion what happened and
it's been better than what else we could’ve been doing. I don't know, probably
so. It's a big fight. [HBO’s] ‘24/7’ was incredible. The next ‘24/7’ is going
to be like the most amazing one that they have ever had but it's just a strain
on all of us, a strain on Antonio, flying him in from Mexico on a Sunday,
putting him through two eye examinations on Monday.
“But
he's a trooper,” the promoter continued. “I'm grateful to him and I know he's
grateful to us because we not only stood by him through thick and thin, the California thing and now the eye thing. But
more importantly, we got him the best treatment for his eye, which is the most
important thing with Dr. [Alan] Crandall at the Moran Eye Institute and we're
very fond of ‘Tony.’”
Hours
before the NYSAC made its decision, Cotto caused a bit of a stir by stating to
reporters that it was Big Apple-or-bust as it related to staging this
fight. Yeah, it kinda caught Arum by surprise. “If I knew he was going to make
a statement like that, you think I would've had a conference call?!”
The
question must be asked: Is Margarito's eye fit to fight?
“Let
me tell you,” explained Arum. “The people who treated the eye, operated on it,
the man [Dr. Crandall] who operated on it is the leading cataract surgeon in
the world- not just in the United States- in the world. Recognized by every
other doctor as being that and he got himself involved in this and he was the
one that certified that Margarito was fit to fight and then there was the
leading sports ophthalmologist [Dr. Rolando Toyos] who reviewed everything and
agreed. Then there was Dr. [Kenneth] Rosenthal [of NYU, who was contacted by Top Rank] yesterday,
who's the leading ophthalmologist in New York, in the
whole state. He's the president [of the New York Intraocular Lens Implant
Society] and he reviewed everything. And then Dr. [Michael]
Goldstein, who is a leading ophthalmologist and was selected by New York, he
reviewed everything. They went point-by-point with him and his conclusion was
he is fit to fight.”
Arum
added, “What I could never understand is why this wasn't done before we
started, the announcement of the fight, the press conference? If they had any
questions, why didn't they say, ‘Bob, take it easy, no press conference. Get
the eye test.’? Even if they turned him down, we would've gone to another
state.”
While
pulling up the tent stakes and moving this show to another state may have
salvaged the card, it would have come at quite a cost to Top Rank. According to
the veteran promoter, “just in out-of-pocket costs, probably $1.5 million
because you can't tell the hotel, ‘Hey, wait a second. Ain't no fight because
we can't pass an eye test.’ So you're on the hook for hotel rooms because this
time of year, there's a real crush. All the expenses, a plane for Margarito
back and forth, easily a million-and-a-half, plus we already had close to $3
million in at the gate in New York. So even if we would've gone to some other
place to do the fight, we would've taken in just a fraction of that. So the
loss probably would've been as much as $5 million.”
Arum
watched the proceedings at the NYSAC on a live stream at the Top Rank offices.
The long, drawn-out manner in which things were handled frustrated the viewing
public (It was something that was talked about quite humorously on Twitter in
the early afternoon). “I have more experience with this because I'm a lawyer
and I know that when they go into deliberation, they were going to come out
with a written opinion, one way or the other,” said Arum, a graduate of Harvard Law School who once worked in the
Attorney General's office during the Kennedy Administration. “I figured that
they were debating the language that they would use in the written opinion
because neither guy who spoke spoke extemporaneously.”
As
for any legal action Top Rank may have considered versus the NYSAC if given the
thumbs down, he says, “We never crossed that bridge and it's very, very
difficult to sue a state agency. Very difficult. There's a lot of legal
doctrines that prevent those kinds of suits from coming down. The courts give
these agencies extremely wide discretion for findings of malice, which
certainly nobody was alleging.”
Can
Arum now say he's seen it all?
“No, because next year, I'll see more. That's what makes it fun to be a
promoter. Nothing is ever the same, things happen all the time,” said Arum, chuckling.
For him, this is old hat and after Muhammad Ali vs. George Chuvalo, everything
else is easy by comparison.
“The
first fight that I did, we got chased out of the country,” recalled Arum of his
attempts to stage Ali versus Ernie Terrell, which ended
up seeing Chuvalo face “The Greatest” instead in March of 1966. “I had one pair
of shoes. I wore them out. I'll never forget; I had a hole in my shoe and then
going to Toronto and
then the Ontario Parliament
voting on whether to allow them to fight- and we won by one vote. And Harold
Ballard, the co-owner of the Maple Leafs and the Maple Leafs Garden, he was
confronted by ‘Connie’ Smythe, who said that if you allow this guy [Ali] into
the building, ‘I'm going to prevent it.’ And so Ballard had to buy [Smythe] out
of the team and the building.
“THAT'S
real pressure.”
SAFETY?
Sergio
Diaz, who has co-managed Margarito for much of his career, insists that his
client is at no more risk than any other boxer who steps into the ring.
“He
is absolutely ready to go. We would not put Antonio in any situation that he
would not want to be in and in any situation that any doctor would not allow
him to be in. We've gone to the best doctors around. We've been with Dr. Alan Crandall, who did the cataract surgery. We
also went with Dr. Thomas Chiu, who was another of the surgeons. They both said
he could continue on with his career. Because, let me tell you; if they were to
tell us, ‘Y’ know what? You cannot continue with this career,’ we would not
look for anybody else or any commissions to get him licenses to fight,” Diaz
insisted.
“Because
a big concern of ours, as well as [Margarito’s], is his health. At one time, he
had already retired. He said, ‘I'm going to retire. I'm going to have surgery
and I can no longer fight,’ but that's when we saw Dr. Crandall, who we went to
just for the surgery preparing for retirement. Dr. Crandall said, ‘No, this is
a simple surgery and he can definitely continue with his career.’”
Diaz zigzagged
across the country as he went with Margarito to New York and back to the West
Coast. He says that his boxer, now in Tijuana, is not
suffering from any jet lag.
“I
spoke to Antonio this morning [Tuesday] to see how he was doing and he said, ‘Sergio,
I'm feeling great. I'm so motivated. I'm reading what Cotto's saying. He won’t
fight outside of New York. That only tells me he's looking to get out of the
fight. I'll fight Cotto anywhere. If we had to go to Puerto Rico, I will go fight him in Puerto
Rico.’ So he sounded really upbeat. He's really motivated and I can't even tell
if he's tired or not. The way he was speaking, he's not tired. I just finished
talking to him right now. He said he just finished doing 12 good rounds.”
ABC
Word
is that certain members of the Association of Boxing Commissions put a lot of
heat on New York to have Margarito's license denied. The theory is that they
wanted to flex their muscles and get a payback on Arum, who took Margarito last
year to Texas after
getting turned away by Nevada. This was
nothing more than a vendetta against a fighter and his promoter. Regardless,
it's another example of why I've never been completely sold on the idea of a
national or federal commission. While it sounds good in theory, what if the
wrong people are put in charge of such a body? And I'm strongly in favor of
states’ rights.
Sorry,
but boxing doesn't need three or four people who think they rule boxing. Besides,
who regulates the regulators?
As
for the issue of whether or not anyone who has an optical lens put in his eye
should be fighting, well, I remember many years ago when Sugar Ray Leonard
retired because it was believed that anyone with a detached retina should not
be boxing. Well, nowadays, you have had a multitude of fighters who have suffered
a similar injury and went on to fight with the aid of modern medical advances.
Who's to say this isn't the case here?
Yeah,
I know; Margarito's right eye doesn't look the same but I'll take the words and
expertise of noted physicians who were willing to stake their professional
reputations on the line by signing off on his health.
24/7
Got
this email a few days ago...
Hey Steve. I'm surprised you didn't have
more words for the best single episode in 24/7 history. I thought for sure
you'd say that Margarito was channeling the pre-prison Carlito Brigante
(http://www.ivid.it/fotogallery/imagesearch/images/carlitos_way_al_pacino_brian_de_palma_023_jpg_msxi.jpg),
or that you'd quote the Simpsons and say that Antonio had crossed the line from
everyday villainy to cartoonish SUPER villainy, or that if he lost to Cotto,
Margarito could fight Mayorga in a rare heel vs. heel matchup like
when the Four Horsemen faced The Freebirds. Maybe in your next column.
But anyway, is this 24/7 going to be shown on other networks the way the
Pacquiao-Marquez one was? THIS is the kind of build-up that needs to be shown
to the general public. I showed three different non-boxing-fan friends of mine
the clip of Cotto and his Mom talking about Miguel Sr, followed by Margarito,
cloaked in shadow like Darth Maul, callously asking why Cotto "cries so
much," and now ALL THREE of them are coming over to my place to watch the
fight. Before that five-minute clip from 24/7, these people thought
Cotto-Margarito was something they'd order with their flautas at Chevy's; now
they want to watch Darth Tony get the Sith kicked out of him by Cotto. Please
give this memo to HBO: give the 24/7 treatment to lesser-known action fighters
in intriguing matchups with stories behind them, instead of wasting time
showing how many more useless people Manny Pacquiao has added to his entourage
or what new and creative way Floyd Mayweather can make a jackass of himself.
Seriously, do those two even NEED 24/7 to sell PPVs anymore? Keep up the great
work.
Jim
Jim, I couldn't
have said it any better. And yes, that was one of the most- if not, by far-
compelling episodes of “24/7” that I can recall. And I have a feeling with all
the stuff that took place the past few days that the second chapter will be
just as interesting. This will be one of the most electric nights in recent
boxing memory. There is no need for any contrived storylines or controversies
here. These two guys flat out don't like each other and the Puerto Ricans want
revenge.
This won’t be for
the faint of heart.
[Editor’s
note: And how can you go wrong crossing boxing with “Star Wars” and Fabulous
Freebirds references? I love you, Jim.]
.
