Boxing hype still pulls me in for Cotto-Margarito

Written by Espn.go.com - Duff McKagan

Duff McKagan's search for sports action drew him to Cotto-Margarito over Oregon-UCLA.

Just back from a month away from the good 'ol USA and, starving for American sports news, I ravenously digested ESPN and ESPN2 for the most part of Friday morning through just after noon.

As a result, I found that the rematch of Cotto-Margarito fight from some three years ago would be on HBO pay-per-view the following night. As a fight fan, I know that HBO, of course, does those "24/7" exposes of the two fighters, their training camps, and the "angle" that may or may not be there. (Another result of me back home watching ESPN was that I found out that UCLA was playing Oregon for the Pac-12 championship that night. I thought I had read the ticker wrong. UCLA? At 6-7? Oh, that's right, USC is on probation. This North and South Division thing: Dumb.)

The "angle" that was making this fight interesting for most seemed to be that it might have been possible Antonio Margarito had used plaster in his hand-wraps before his late-round annihilation and bludgeoning of Miguel Cotto in that last fight. The suspicion was brought about when plaster was apparently found just before a fight Margarito had with Shane Mosley after the Cotto massacre.

HBO took the viewer along, as they painted a plainly black and white picture; Good (Cotto) vs. Evil (Margarito) was the story HBO has to tell, and they played it to the hilt. Hey! This stuff sells. I took the bait.

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