Margarito To Fight Baldomir in June or July?

By Boxing News - 02/12/2009 - Comments

margo2435By Eric Thomas: With the California State Athletic Commission stripping away the licenses of both Antonio Margarito (37-6, 27 KOs) and his excellent trainer Javier Capetillo on Tuesday, revoking the licenses for a minimum of one year, his promoter Bob Arum is looking to keep him active by having him fight in June or July in Mexico possibly against Argentinean Carlos Baldomir (44-12-6, 13 KOs). This would be a great fight for Margarito, one sure to interest many Mexicans who despite the controversy over Antonio’s problems with illegal hand wraps being put on him mistakenly by his trainer before Margarito’s January 24th fight with Shane Mosley, is still a very popular fighter in Mexico.

The whole center of the controversy is about a small amount of extra padding that was found inside Margarito’s hand wraps by Naazim Richardson, the trainer for Mosley, before Margarito’s fight with Shane. Along with the extra padding, there was mention of a possible white substance that might be a substance called “plaster of paris” but as of yet there’s no indication that there ever was any such material in Margarito’s hand wraps. The substance is still being analyzed at a lab, and the results won’t be known for at least a month.

Margarito stated to the commission that he was unaware of any extra padding in his hand wraps. However, excuse or not, Margarito has his license revoked anyway by the commission for one year. At the end of a year, Margarito along with his trainer can reapply for their licenses, but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to get his license back then or ever.

Margarito has the option of appealing the case before the superior court in California or the Association of Boxing Commission, asking them to overturn the license revocation. If the white substance does turn out to be plaster of paris, as some people think it is, it’s doubtful that Margarito will have any success with his appeals – if he does choose to make them.

In its current form, the license revocation keeps Margarito from fighting in California only, but in some cases the other states accept the California ruling and also keep the fighter from fighting in their states. However, the ban doesn’t stretch beyond the United States, which means that Margarito will continue to make a living in boxing. However, the one opponent – Miguel Cotto – that he had been hoping to fight in June, won’t likely be fighting him if Miguel’s recent comments about his banning are any indication of future action.

Cotto recently said that Margarito shouldn’t be able to fight anywhere for one-year, not just in the United States. This could suggest that Cotto wouldn’t be interested in fighting Margarito in Mexico as long as the year-long suspension is still in place.

What Cotto doesn’t realize, however, is that the suspension could possibly last longer than a year, and could continue hurting Margarito for much longer. For this reason, it’s in Margarito’s best interest to keep fighting wherever he can until he gets his boxing license back.



Comments are closed.