Miguel Cotto, who lost the only fight of his career to Antonio Margarito, says the former welterweight champion should never step foot in a boxing ring again, in light of recent rulings and discoveries about Margarito’s loaded gloves.

Test results that were found this week showed that the foreign materials found in Margarito’s hand wraps prior to his January fight with Shane Mosley included sulfur and calcium, two of the key elements in plaster. Margarito and his trainer, Javier Capetillo were barred from working in California for one year at the initial hearing in February.

While there is no physical proof that Margarito attempted to use loaded gloves in any fight other than the Mosley fight, suspicion is high that it was not the first time he’d ever done it. Circumstantial evidence is strong that Margarito was fighting with loaded hands against Cotto in 2008.

Cotto was stopped late in the fight as his face turned into a bloody mess. As the fight went on, Margarito’s punches seemed to do more damage in that fight. If a glove is loaded with plaster-like materials, they harden as they moisten, so as the hands sweat in a fight, the material turns into something as hard as concrete.

Cotto had given Margarito the benefit of the doubt through his first hearing, but upon hearing the results of the testing of the materials, Cotto said that Margarito should never fight again.

“I understand that Margarito not only played with my health but he played with health of many boxers. Only God knows. I have received punishment in my career but I never had my face swell like in that fight. In the heat of the fight I didn’t feel the punches, but my face didn’t say that. I understand that one year of suspension is not much for the kind of unsportsmanlike act that Margarito presented against Mosley. He deserves the same suspension as trainer Panama Lewis. He should never step into a boxing ring again.”

Going back to the fight, watch the highlights knowing what we know now about Margarito. Does this look suspicious?

When you watch that fight again, it is very easy to be suspicious of what Margarito was using to hit Cotto. Cotto was winning the first half of the fight and taking Margarito’s punches well, but in the second half of the fight, Margarito looked like he was hitting Cotto with bricks, and Cotto’s face swelled up like we’ve never seen it before.

Of course, loaded gloves aren’t going to give you the ability to take everything a fighter like Miguel Cotto throws at you and keep walking forward, so there is plenty of reason to once again give Margarito the benefit of the doubt. But having said that, my guy feeling, like that of Cotto and many others, is that Margarito was cheating in this fight as well.

What Margarito attempted to do against Mosley, and probably did against Cotto is nothing short of criminal. This is a man who went into a professional prize fight, and attempted to put the equivalent of bricks into his gloves. Had Mosley been punched one time with those gloves, you could have been looking at serious criminal charges. But the gloves never made it into the ring, and there is no physical proof that Margarito did this in any other fight.

While the courts of California and Nevada may never be able to prove that Margarito did anything criminal, the court of public opinion has made their decision. Margarito will never again be respected as a professional fighter, and there is a good chance that he never fights in the United States again. If the idiots that surround him (Bob Arum) and the idiots that run boxing in Mexico (Jose Sulaiman) continue to believe that Margarito is innocent and support him based on that assumption, then they are choosing to be guilty by association. This guy is a criminal, as is his trainer, and anyone that supports his attempts to continue boxing, without at least serving his punishment, are shameful people.

I agree with Cotto — the day that Margarito steps foot into a boxing ring again will be far too soon. His career should be over.

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*Originally posted at BoxingInformer.com*

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