Mexican former welterweight champion, Antonio Margarito – set for a comeback at the age of 37 – has publicly slated bitter rival, Miguel Cotto, calling the Puerto Rican WBC middleweight champion ‘a girl’ as he chases a 3rd fight between them.
Margarito was famously embroiled in the loaded wraps saga before his 2009 fight with ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley, thus causing his destructive TKO win over Miguel Cotto in his previous outing to be called severely into question.
The two bitter rivals rematched in 2011, with Margarito’s surgically repaired eye taking an absolute hammering at Cotto’s gleeful hands, causing the Mexican to be pulled out by the ringside doctor after 9 rounds, retiring him, ostensibly for good.
However, Margarito now looks set for a return under old promoter Bob Arum, and is chasing a 3rd fight with Cotto, who fights Margarito’s countryman, Canelo Alvarez in Las Vegas later this month for the Puerto Rican’s middleweight strap.
It’s a fight that given Margarito’s questionable history, Cotto isn’t keen on.
“[Cotto] only contradicts himself, because after the second fight he was asked to compare my punching power between the fights and said there was no difference, it felt the same,” Margarito told ESPN Desportes.
“So if I brought something illegal, as he says, then he would not have felt the same effect of the punches in the second fight. I think Cotto is a girl. He has fear, because everyone wants to see a third bout.
“Right now we each won one fight. I think he is afraid to face Antonio Margarito in a third fight to see who is the best.”
And the Mexican veteran also wasn’t beyond mocking the Alvarez fight plan of Cotto’s trainer Freddie Roach, who believes his man will stop the younger challenger through sheer work rate and intense body punching.
“He doesn’t have the punching power to knock out Canelo Alvarez,” Margarito said scornfully. “I’m serious when I say that Cotto has no punching power and therefore I have to say it again – he hits like a girl,” he added.
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