HispanicBusiness

Miguel Cotto is out for revenge against Antonio Margarito, but it seems his bitter feelings toward the man who beat him bloody on July 26, 2008, have not cooled to a point at which the WBO welterweight champion will try to settle an old, festering score dispassionately. His dislike of Margarito still runs hot, very hot.

"I handled my defeat like a man," Cotto (36-2, 29 KOs) said of his 11th-round stoppage at the perhaps-loaded hands of Margarito (38-7, 27 KOs). "I have for three years. But he wasn't a man to use those kinds of things. He's a criminal to do that."

Saturday night's HBO Pay Per View rematch of Cotto and Margarito is expected to draw a full house of 18,000-plus in New York's Madison Square Garden and features all the elements attendant to every grudge fight - good guy vs. bad guy (or at least the perception of that), national pride (Cotto is Puerto Rican; Margarito is Mexican) and, of course, controversy.

Cotto won most of the early rounds in his first go at Margarito, but the "Tijuana Tornado's" big shots eventually broke him down until Cotto, his face grotesquely swollen and a crimson smear, took a knee in the 11th round and, for all intents and purposes, ran up the white flag.

And that was that, until Jan. 24, 2009, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, when Shane Mosley challenged then-WBA welterweight champion Margarito. Upon inspecting Margarito's handwraps before the fight, North Philadelphia's Brother Naazim Richardson, Mosley's trainer, brought seeming irregularities to the attention of an inspector for the California State Athletic Commission. The inspector directed Margarito's trainer, Javelier Capetillo, to rewrap his fighter's hands, after which Margarito, his renowned punching power seemingly diminished, was stopped in nine rounds.

A subsequent CSAC investigation revealed that Margarito's hand wraps contained traces of calcium and sulfur, which are ingredients of plaster of Paris. Margarito was suspended for a year and branded by many as "Margacheato." Several of his pre-Mosley victories, including the one over Cotto, were cast into doubt.

"The only fighter that's ever hurt me and cut me has been Margarito," said Reading resident Kermit Citron, who twice lost inside the distance. "The only fighter that I've ever seen hurt Cotto bad was Margarito. We both fought Margarito, and we both got busted up.

"I don't know what to say about it, but I do believe if you're caught once, what makes you think (a cheater) hadn't done it before?"

Cotto certainly began to wonder the same thing. Was his beatdown by Margarito on the up-and-up? Or had he been hammered by fists hardened by plaster? And, no, Cotto doesn't buy Margarito's assertion that he had no idea what Capetillo was putting on his hands.

"All I know is when fighters get their hands wrapped, they know what's in them," Cotto said in February 2009. "They know if something is in their wraps or not."

Margarito is fortunate even to be available for this second go at Cotto, and not only despite being judged guilty in the court of public opinion. He took a frightful pounding in losing a unanimous, 12-round decision to Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 13, 2010, incurring injuries to his right eye so severe he required three operations to repair the orbital bone and a detached retina, and to remove a cataract.

Margarito claims to see perfectly now, and his view of what will happen Saturday is remarkably similar to what happened at Las Vegas' MGM Grand the first time he and Cotto squared off.

"The result will be the same. I will knock Miguel Cotto out," Margarito said. "When I go out and do to Cotto the same thing I did the last time, people will know what the truth is."

For his part, Cotto said he will target Margarito's suspect right eye, because, hey, the boxing ring is a place for dispensing punishment, not sympathy. He especially is not inclined to take it easy on someone he has called not only a criminal, but an embarrassment to boxing. Cotto is likely to go off as slightly more than a 2-to-1 favorite.

One of the televised undercard bouts pairs world-rated North Philly welterweight Mike Jones (25-0, 19 KOs) against Argentina's Sebastian Lujuan ( 38-5-2, 24 KOs) in a scheduled 12-rounder.