Boxing: Title contender Cotto, Arum spar over justice
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The most interesting aspect of last night's pay-per-view, split-site doubleheader might have been an out-of-the-ring dispute, in which a Harvard-educated individual with a law degree squared off with an associate who has no legal training but is armed with his own strong opinion as to what constitutes right and wrong.
The Harvard guy, Bob Arum, founded Top Rank, the promotional company that oversees the career of former WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto, who has a distinctly different view of the matter in question.
Cotto (32-1, 26 KOs), who took on England's Michael Jennings (34-1, 16 KOs) for the vacant WBO welterweight title in Madison Square Garden, was convinced his June 26, 2008, upset loss to Antonio Margarito -- also promoted by Arum -- stems at least in part to "Wrapgate," the controversy that sprang up when Margarito's hand wraps for his losing bout with Shane Mosley on Jan. 24 were found to be illegal. Without the hard, plaster of Paris-like inserts in the hand wraps, Margarito's punching power was not nearly as devastating against Mosley as it appeared to be against Cotto. The results of those fights reflect the apparent disparity: Margarito, who had lost most of the early rounds, eventually wore down Cotto en route to winning on an 11th-round technical knockout; against Mosley, the "Tijuana Tornado" wasn't even a stiff breeze in being stopped in 10 rounds.
Though trainer Javier Capetillo reportedly took responsibility, the California State Athletic Commission gave Margarito a one-year suspension that almost certainly will be honored by other member states in the Association of Boxing Commissions. Margarito has hinted that he might try to keep busy by fighting in Mexico, where the suspension is less likely to be observed.
Arum, in the unenviable position of having to placate Cotto as he tries to keep Margarito in play, has said he believes the California commission should not have taken action against the fighter if it declined to find him culpable for Capetillo's rules violation.
"They deprived a young man of his livelihood after finding him innocent of any wrongdoing," Arum said. "That offends me as somebody who graduated from law school. It offends me as an American. Americans don't punish somebody who is proved to be innocent of any wrongdoing."
Cotto, on the other hand, thinks the only loss on his record is the real travesty of justice.
First Published February 22, 2009 12:00 am
