By Jim Dower: Antonio Margarito may have lost more than just his fight with Shane Mosley last Saturday night, he might have also lost his chance of facing Miguel Cotto in a second fight, which had been under consideration for the Summer. But in losing every round to Mosley, ending with being knocked down twice and stopped in the 9th, Margarito might not be popular enough to fight Cotto at this point.
This wasn’t a fight where Margarito even has flashes of looking good, since he was pretty well handled by the 37-year-old Mosley. Even worse for Margarito was the incident with the hand wrap before the fight, where a hard object was discovered in his wraps by Nazim Richardson, the trainer for Mosley. Hopefully, it turns out to be a big misunderstanding but until it’s fully investigated, Margarito is going to look bad due to the speculation going on.
Cotto has a fight with Michael Jennings for the vacant WBO welterweight title on February 21st, and depending on whether Cotto wins that fight or not, it will leave him in the position to fight someone else with a name. Mosley, being the hot fighter right now, would seem like the logical choice for Cotto rather Margarito.
I’m sure that most fans would much prefer to see Mosley face Cotto right now rather than Margarito. Although I’d personally prefer to see Cotto fight Margarito, myself, because I like to see a lot of action and with Mosley, he clinched far too much in his fight with Margarito last Saturday night and I wouldn’t want to take the chance of seeing that happen again.
Mosley has never been much of a clincher, but his style may have been changed with the addition of his new trainer who also, by the way, trains Bernard Hopkins, a fighter that often clinches a lot in his fights. My guess is that Cotto will look in another direction and bypass Margarito for now and choose someone like Mosley, Joshua Clottey or possibly the winner of Ricky Hatton vs. Manny Pacquiao.
That would be an ideal fight, much more exciting than watching Mosley fight the winner between those two. However, I’m not sure that Hatton or Pacquiao would go for the idea of fighting Cotto, because he would have the size advantage over each of them and might be too strong for them to compete against.
Margarito needs to seek out another alternative to Cotto, someone like Luis Collazo or Zab Judah. Margarito needs to build up his name again and he needs to get a couple of easy wins in a big hurry. If possible, he should try to fight as fast as possible, beating two or three good fighters than go after Cotto. If he fights Cotto now, the fight won’t make nearly as much money than it will if he wins a couple of important fights and redeems himself somewhat. In this case, he needs to be patient and look at the long term picture in getting back on top.
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