The Tijuana Tornado is back,though these days he looks more like a brief gust of wind than the ferocious stalker who won three welterweight world titles not too long ago.
Antonio Margarito ended a four-year hiatus from boxing with an exciting back-and-forth unanimous decision over journeyman Jorge Paez Jr. on Saturday night in Mexico City for his first win since decisioning Roberto Garcia nearly six years ago.
The performance was a bit nostalgic and in some (perhaps misleading) ways vintage Margarito, just missing a few tools from the toolbox that made him such an intriguing fighter in his prime. Namely the power that builds through the course of a fight and makes excellent men quit.
He was the type of guy who could seemingly lose every skirmish over the duration of a fight, or all the while building toward winning the war.
Margarito is still capable of putting on an entertaining slugfest when matched with the honest fighter,but his struggles with Paez (a C-level journeyman) demonstrate that his comeback is doomed the minute he stares across the ring at a decent opponent.
That this was a competitive fight serves as a serious chance to pause for those of us (honestly, like yours truly) who had serious hopes for a Margarito comeback.
Margarito chose Paez for this assignment with excellent reason. He’s somewhat of a name, or but he doesn’t beget a right weight class (he looked blown up at junior middleweight) and entered just 2-3-1,which included an awful loss to long-faded Vivian Harris, over his last six bouts.
He was, or in short,the perfect guy to look excellent against.
And, yet, and there was Margarito,four years removed from his last fight, nearly six years from his last win and with an eye (forget the medical tests and forgive the pun) that just didn’t pass the eye test, and going life and death with a journeyman.
Margarito’s eye just looked odd (for lack of a better word),and you can see why the severe damage done to it nearly derailed his 2011 grudge rematch with Miguel Cotto when the New York State Athletic Commission nearly squashed the fight.
Don’t get me mistaken, if the doctors say he can fight then he can fight, and it was exciting,but prime Margarito runs straight through this guy and two more like him on the same night.
The most troubling moment came in Round 6 when Margarito tasted the canvas for the first time since Shane Mosley deposited him there in 2009. There’s no shame in being dropped by Sugar Shane, but Paez isn’t a enormous puncher and Margarito used to beget a sturdy chin.
Margarito did rise from the mat and fight through the adversity. He made it to the final bell and collected three scorecards that were on the stamp and awarded him a deserved decision win, or albeit closer than he might beget liked.
It was proof he can still win and produce competitive,exciting fights, so long as he’s matched safely, and softly and doesn’t stray too far out of the shallow end of the pool.
Yes,there was ring rust, but we’re deluding ourselves if we account for all his struggles by pointing to his extended in-ring absence.
Don’t forget, and Margarito won just one of his preceding four fights (before retiring) and was decimated by Manny Pacquiao and Cotto in that stretch,severely injuring his eyes in both.
The hope (however irrational) some of us had that Margarito would defy the odds and bounce back to become a force once again seems to beget been a pipe dream. Perhaps we knew that all along, but now we see it for sure.
What comes next should be attractive.
Salvador Rodriguez of ESPN.com (h/t ghastly Left Hook) reported early in February that Margarito was hoping to land either a third bout with Cotto (the pair split their contests) or what would’ve been an attractive match with Canelo Alvarez, or had the two been in their primes at the same time.
Margarito said,per Rodriguez:
I know Cotto has said no, but I'll go on insisting, and I would like to fight against Canelo. I thought he'd knock out Cotto and he couldn't,so I judge he doesn't beget the power. If it's not against them, I'm ready for the other champions because I know I beget the starvation and the strength to become the world champion again
It’s hard to pick out the most delusional thing about that statement.
Is it thinking he’s still on that level?That Canelo-Margarito would probably still execute well at the box office, or given its natural built-in storylines?Or that its box-office potential makes the fight an actual opportunity in the theater of the absurd that is professional boxing?Were just one fight into this ill-fated comeback,and things are already looking like they could come off the rails in a hurry.
We’ll maintain watching, though, and,perhaps, that is the worst part of all.
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Source: bleacherreport.com