By Sean McDaniel: Right now, former WBA/WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito has a lot of angry boxing fans who would like nothing better than to see him prevented from practicing his sport again. This is due to the now infamous hand wrap incident that took place prior to his fight with Shane Mosley on January 24th. While Margarito was having his hand wraps inspected, it was discovered by the trainer of Mosley that there was a hardened substance in both of Margarito’s hand wraps.
Part of the substance turned out to be nothing more than a partly wet old wrap that had dried and hardened in various places, while the other part, a white substance, has yet to be identified and is still under analysis. It is believed that this substance may turn out to be plaster of paris, which when wet will in theory harden and turn the wrap into a more of a rock hard club.
But as of yet, there is nothing conclusive to indicate that it’s anything of this kind. Margarito’s trainer Javier Capetillo has said that he made a mistake in putting on a pair of old wraps on Margarito before the fight, taking the full blame for the problem. The California State Athletic Commission, which heard the case on Tuesday, didn’t appear to believe Capetillo and slapped both him and Margarito with a one-year license revocation.
Chances are, Capetillo will be licensed again in California even when he does eventually reapply a year from now if that’s what he’s planning on doing. Margarito, who was said to not be aware of any foreign substance in his gloves, will be reapplying for his license at the end of a year ban. However, if something like plaster of paris does turn up in lab results, it could be potentially bad for Margarito.
With something like that weighing him down, it would be hard to imagine that Margarito would be allowed to get his license again in California. With many of the other states in the U.S falling in with the rulings of one state, this could mean that Margarito never gets his license again no matter how many times he reapplies. The question is, if the worst case scenario turns out to be true, in which his hand wraps do have plaster of paris inside of them, should he be allowed to fight again?
To be sure, he’ll most certainly be allowed to fight elsewhere outside of the U.S., places like Mexico, Europe or South America, but should he? There’s nothing that the United States can probably do to stop him from fighting if he wants to, but he may find it hard potentially to face some of the more important big name fighters in the U.S.
He could by virtue of climbing the rankings eventually force a fight with a champion as a mandatory, but that would set up a strange situation where the fight wouldn’t likely be able to take place in the U.S. due to his loss of his license.
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