The Boxing Amusement Park's opinion

Trainer Javier Capetillo and ex-hero Antonio Margarito

MARGARITO'S GOOD NAME

WILL NEVER BE THE SAME

By DENNIS TAYLOR

The Boxing Amusement Park

    Antonio Margarito might not yet realize it, but he has enrolled in the same School of Hard Knocks that attempted to educate a lot of famous people who came before him. He now has something in common with former presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush (political scandal), 1950s game show champion Charles Van Doren (cheating scandal), former NFL star Michael Vick (animal abuse), track stars Marion Jones and Ben Johnson, and sluggers Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds (performance-enhancing drugs), and so many others.

    Here's the lesson they've all been given an opportunity to learn: Your good name is all you really have. Once you soil it -- and it doesn't really matter how you do that -- people will never look at you the same way.

    In one defining night, Margarito fell hard from his perch near the pinnacle of professional boxing. Shortly before his world welterweight title defense against Shane Mosley, Margarito and his trainer, Javier Capetillo, were caught red-handed treating his hand wraps with a plaster of paris-type substance. When moistened by perspiration, the mixture would have hardened like stone, effectively turning the fighter's fists into wrecking balls.

    Fortunately, Mosley's own head trainer, Naazim Richardson, was in Margarito's dressing room as an observer -- a common practice in boxing -- and brought the highly illegal and dangerous ploy to the attention of an inspector from the California State Athletic Commission, who forced the fighter to re-wrap his hands properly.

    Margarito, a 4-1 betting favorite, then went out and got routed by the 37-year-old Mosley, who won the title with a ninth-round technical knockout.

    Boxing oracles are calling it one of the biggest upsets  in recent years, particularly in the context of the manner in which Margarito bludgeoned and bloodied the otherwise-invincible Miguel Cotto in his previous fight .

    The Cotto victory elevated Margarito near the top of most Pound-For-Pound lists, and established him as the newest superstar in the eyes of the Mexican-American boxing community.

    And he seemed like a genuine hero, an athlete worth rooting for. He overcame a hardscrabble childhood. He made his pro boxing debut at age 15 in Mexico, mostly to earn money to support a girlfriend who basically was a mother figure to her three younger brothers. How noble is that? Margarito married that girl, and she is still his wife.

    His ascent in boxing was a difficult one. He lost several fights early in his career, when he was a boy fighting against men. As he grew into a welterweight fighter of unusual size, strength, skill and valor, the best boxers in the division chose to avoid him. So when he finally TKO'd the previously undefeated Cotto in 2008, he had good reason to celebrate -- and be celebrated.

    But that's gone now. If he was willing to cheat to beat Mosley, it's a reasonable assumption that he used the same tactics to bust up Miguel Cotto. And, quite honestly, that suddenly turns Margarito into a pariah in the sport.

    Did he beat Cotto fair and square? Did he harden his fists before any of his previous victories? Maybe not, but we'll never really know. And that makes Antonio Margarito's otherwise-great boxing career unworthy of our attention forever more.

    Margarito's good name is gone. And when it's gone, it's gone.

    Dennis Taylor is a boxing columnist who lives on the beautiful Central Coast of California. He also is co-host of The Ringside Boxing Show (9 a.m. Pacific, noon Eastern, every Sunday at www.knry.com) and editor and publisher of The Boxing Amusement Park at www.ringsideboxingshow.com. CLICK HERE to send him an e-mail.