No ducking this time

LAS VEGAS – Antonio Margarito's entire in-ring persona is built around being the guy that most other welterweights have ducked.

He supposedly is so scary in the ring that he has been ducked by everyone from Shane Mosley and Zab Judah to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya.

Not surprisingly, there was plenty of talk about ducking and dodging on Wednesday at the MGM Grand in the final formal news conference to promote Margarito's challenge of Miguel Cotto on Saturday for the WBA welterweight title.

Promoter Bob Arum went to great lengths to make the point that many of the best welterweights of this era have done the soft shoe to skip past Margarito. He took no less than a half-dozen shots at Mayweather while never mentioning the now-retired pound-for-pound king's name.

After the news conference, Arum remained on the offensive. He pointed out that he offered Mayweather what would then have been a career-high $8 million to face Margarito in November 2006.

Instead, Mayweather opted to fight Carlos Baldomir, the linear titleholder, for $5 million.

"Yeah, they said it was $5 million, but it was really four," Arum said. "He said no to twice more than he'd ever been paid before. There's no way to spin that."

But this time Margarito, supposedly the man everyone avoids, suddenly found himself on the defensive, answering questions about his decision 13 months ago to bypass Cotto and instead to face Paul Williams.

Cotto was then, as now, an infinitely more difficult challenge than Williams. Margarito's answer was simply that he didn't want to surrender the WBO championship he held at the time.

If that doesn't make sense to you, you're not alone. Margarito would have been surrendering one belt (the WBO) to fight for another (the WBA).

It's especially puzzling considering he has done the exact thing this time around, handing up his IBF belt he won in the interim so that Judah and Joshua Clottey can fight for it next week.

Margarito had a way of explaining it that didn't clarify the subject, just as it didn't make sense to fight Williams last year – and ultimately lose the WBO belt by decision – and not Cotto.

"The difference is that in order to get the Cotto fight I had to fight (Kermit) Cintron," Margarito said. "Cintron had the title. That was a bonus."

That's convoluted logic at best, since if he'd taken the Cotto fight last year and given up the WBO belt, he wouldn't have had to fight someone else to win a title in order to earn a shot at Cotto, as he had to do this year.

Cotto was exceptionally angry when he learned last year that Margarito opted for Williams. For months afterward, he wouldn't even consider a question on the subject. Bring up Margarito's name and Cotto would simply sneer and say, "He had his chance and he chose to fight Paul Williams."

At his training camp in Caguas, Puerto Rico, last month, Cotto said he was mystified by Margarito's choice.

"I never say who I want to fight," Cotto said. "I listen to my company (Top Rank). They tell me who to fight and that's who I fight. Every time. Why would Margarito fight Williams if Top Rank told him to fight Cotto?"

Arum said he's never so much as discussed a potential opponent with Cotto. The septuagenarian promoter said once he decides on Cotto's opponent, he calls Cotto and tells him. Then they negotiate over money and contracts are signed.

"He'd fight (former heavyweight champion) Lennox Lewis, if I told him to," Arum said of Cotto.

Margarito has several attributes that figure to make him one of Cotto's more difficult tasks. Margarito is four inches taller and holds a six-inch reach advantage. In addition, he has a solid chin that he believes in so much that he often wades in open, believing he can take two to land one.

But Margarito, 30, hasn't been in with the kinds of thoroughbreds Cotto has faced since turning professional after representing Puerto Rico in the 2000 Olympics.

Cotto has faced Mosley, the one-time pound-for-pound king, as well as other frontline talent such as Judah and Paulie Malignaggi. Margarito's roster of opponents is far less impressive.

Margarito, who is 36-5 with 26 knockouts and one no contest, dismisses that, though, as little more than opportunity.

"I never got those opportunities," he said.

There have been many fighters like Margarito through the years, who weren't particularly attractive to the big names because they weren't big ticket sellers despite being dangerous opponents. The most notable was Charley Burley, the great welterweight of the 1940s who was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame despite never having gotten a title shot.

Margarito, at least, has already fought in 12 world championship bouts and now is getting a shot against a guy whom many feel may be ready to ascend to pound-for-pound supremacy. The fight with Cotto will be his 13th title bout in 43 pro fights, meaning 30.3 percent of all of his bouts have been for a world title.

Given that, it's hard to feel too sorry for him.

Regardless, this is Margarito's time to back his words. After years of whining about all the fighters who have ducked him, he's finally got a pound-for-pound opponent in the opposite corner.

It's a year later than it should have happened and blame for that lies squarely on Margarito's broad shoulders. He needs to prove on Saturday that he has been the guy who has been ducked and not, as it seems now, the guy who has been doing the ducking.