Margarito-Cotto II: Revenge served cold

Saturday’s rematch between Mexican Antonio Margarito and Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto is about revenge. It is not about establishing primacy at the kooky catchweight of 153 pounds or resolving some residual doubt from their first encounter. It is about satisfying the bloodlust Puerto Ricans feel because of the ruin Margarito brought to their guy’s career in 2008.

Once you admit this fight appeals to nothing but a sense of vengeance, you can suspend other moral considerations. And once that’s done, all the Margarito-Cotto II pieces fall happily into place.

Tuesday afternoon the New York State Athletic Commission tossed a fig leaf of plausible deniability over a few of the other moral considerations that might otherwise flash us from Madison Square Garden during Saturday night’s pay-per-view event. After a sympathetic doctor was finally located to underwrite the condition of Margarito’s surgically repaired right eye and/or orbital bone, deniability was established: If Margarito is blinded by Cotto, why, it will be an accident like any other – the very sort of thing every fighter risks whenever he dons gloves.

At this moment (as opposed to the heartfelt recriminations sure to come if tragedy strikes), does anyone besides Margarito’s wife care if the worst happens to Margarito? No. Not even Margarito cares. Frankly, he’s about to make a pretty rational decision; he’s risking the sight in one eye to make millions of dollars. Who among us wouldn’t do the same in this economy?

Margarito should not be in this fight. After a plaster-like substance was found on pads placed over his knuckles before a 2009 match with Shane Mosley, Margarito was stretched by Mosley and banned from the sport. He earned a pay-per-view fight with Manny Pacquiao 22 months later by acquiring a phony light middleweight title and being a Mexican expected to draw countrymen to Cowboys Stadium, where he was summarily undone by a man structurally not 2/3 his size. He earned Saturday’s fight by having two surgeries.

Margarito’s only real qualification for facing Cotto is the ire he now causes Puerto Ricans. That ire comes from the universally held suspicion Margarito used the very same pads against Cotto he was about to use against Mosley. If you were in MGM Grand Garden Arena on July 26, 2008 and happened to look at the screen above the ring and see Cotto’s misshapen face, it was probably the first image that came in your mind when, five months later, you learned what happened in Margarito’s dressing room before his fight with Mosley.

If that is conjecture, it is conjecture of the most damning sort, something no amount of pettifogging by Margarito’s lawyers can undo. Witnesses to Margarito-Cotto I know what they saw, know how much it meant to them at the time, pro or con, and know what Margarito did to their memories is unforgivable.

Cotto has not been the same since his match with Margarito. He says he was criminally assaulted in their first fight. Whatever else Cotto might be, he is decidedly not a salesman; he would rather see Margarito in jail than across a boxing ring from him.

Because this fight is about Puerto Rican vengeance, it could not logically happen anywhere but Madison Square Garden, Cotto’s home field. When the NYSAC began its bluster routine a couple weeks back, there was talk about other venues in other states. But this fight was destined for New York or bust.

How do we know that? Miguel Cotto told us.

In an ill-advised Tuesday conference call, an event to have Cotto tell us only that he felt strong, Cotto was asked about the still-festering controversy concerning his fight’s venue. Cotto knew of no controversy; if the NYSAC didn’t license Margarito, Cotto would not fight him. Promoter Bob Arum then declared his own conference call “really not appropriate” and told his publicist to end it.

Which brings us to a note about media access: Beware of promoters bearing scoops.

Two weeks ago, during Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fightweek festivities in Houston, a reporter from a prominent magazine misunderstood the access Arum granted him. He wrote about alternate Margarito-Cotto II venues in states far-flung as Colorado and Mississippi. He was aflutter with possible venue changes and proud to breakfast with Arum. But his only real role was to be Arum’s megaphone as the wily old promoter applied pressure to the politically appointed folks hovering round the NYSAC’s licensing decision.

One of the ironies of Margarito’s post-Mosley career is that Arum has been more comfortable playing villain than Margarito has. Margarito wears the dark glasses and makes fun of Cotto’s whining, sure, but it’s obvious to anyone who knows Margarito that he desperately wants to be liked, not hated. Margarito’s transformation from the beloved figure he was after beating Cotto to the infamous character he now plays makes as much sense to him as those agility drills he does on HBO’s “24/7” program, and twice as much sense as whatever he’s supposed to be accomplishing with that slip rope they keep stringing across the ring posts.

Margarito’s role Saturday is to be easy for Cotto to hit. Sans hardening agent on his middle knuckles, it is unlikely Margarito will punch with force enough to stop Cotto a second time. Cotto would certainly like to beat Margarito or even stop him – it would confirm everything Cotto believes happened to his career – but it is not what is most important to him.

What is most important to Cotto is not being stopped by Margarito a second time. Do not expect, then, some frenzied and grudge-induced attack in the center of the ring. Expect Cotto to move and box like a man who does not want to find his legs gone in round 9, would very much like to win, and hopes he might do to Margarito what Mosley did.

Expect, in other words, revenge served cold: Cotto, UD-12.

Bart Barry can be reached at bart.barrys.email (at) gmail.com