Margarito now a star, but don't expect Oscar fight

LAS VEGAS – You can scratch another prospective opponent from Oscar De La Hoya's list.

After Antonio Margarito's brutally efficient performance in an 11th round stoppage of previously unbeaten Miguel Cotto Saturday before a passionate crowd of 10,477, there's no way that De La Hoya will choose to face Margarito in December in what the Golden Boy says will be his swan song.

After promoter Bob Arum said he watched a freight train roll over one of the greats of the game, he chuckled at the thought of either De La Hoya or the retired Floyd Mayweather Jr. signing to face Margarito.

"I can't talk for businessmen," Arum said caustically when he was asked about the possibility of arranging either Margarito-De La Hoya or Margarito-Mayweather. "Businessman talk for themselves. You see how smart of a businessman Floyd was. I offered him $8 million (in 2006) to fight this beast and he turned it down. Floyd showed he was pretty smart."

And have no doubt that De La Hoya will show plenty of business acumen within the next 10 days when he chooses someone – anyone – other than Margarito for his planned Dec. 6 career finale.

No matter how many times Cotto watches the tape of the bout, which referee Kenny Bayless said is the best he's ever worked, he won't be able to find much he didn't do correctly.

He circled smartly. He used his jab effectively. He countered expertly with his left.

It didn't matter, though, because it was like an SUV playing demolition derby with a Mack truck.

Cotto hit Margarito with a dozen or so shots hard enough to have ended the fight, but Margarito would simply sneer and come forward winging punches. By the seventh round, Cotto was no longer circling and was instead backing up.

By the ninth, he was in full retreat. And by the end of the 10th, Cotto was a cleanly beaten fighter.

Margarito decked Cotto with a right in a neutral corner about 90 seconds into the 11th round. Cotto staggered to his feet, a game but clearly beaten man. He punched back when the fight resumed, which might have been his biggest mistake.

"I was getting real close to stopping it at that point," Bayless said, "but Cotto was still throwing some hard punches."

Those ill-fated few punches led Cotto only to take a further beating. Margarito pushed Cotto quickly into a corner and was winging vicious shots, prompting Cotto's trainer, his uncle, Evangelista, to climb up to the ring apron and ask for the fight to be stopped as Cotto went down for a second time.

It capped a brilliant performance by a man who had spent most of his career in the shadows of bigger names such as Cotto. Margarito had been billed as the most avoided man in boxing and had almost begged for bouts against the likes of De La Hoya, Mayweather and Shane Mosley.

And while it's almost certain De La Hoya is going to look as far in the opposite direction as he can, Margarito at least knows that since he became one of the division's big names on Saturday, he'll have a few of them knocking on his door.

Arum said the tracking of the pay-per-view results are encouraging As a result, Margarito will be able to get fights that wouldn't have been remotely possible before.

Arum said buys on DirecTV were tracking about 50 percent better than Cotto's November win over Mosley, which wound up selling 350,000 units.

"Something changed tonight," Arum said. "This fight did tremendous numbers on pay-per-view. A great number of those who bought it were Mexicans, Mexican-Americans. Because of that, people who wouldn't fight him before would be inclined to fight him because now the money rewards can be so great.

"It changes the whole parameter of who won't or who will. Something happened tonight that changed everything, to (Margarito's) benefit."

Something changed dramatically beginning with the seventh round in the ring on Saturday. Cotto led 58-56 on all three judges' card after six rounds and seemed to be in command of the fight.

He was fighting as well, or better, than he ever had.

"Miguel was hitting him with some unbelievable shots," Arum said. "I thought he'd just wear him down and stop him."

But Margarito returned to his corner after the sixth very confident. He wasn't being hurt by Cotto's shots and said he could sense Cotto beginning to slow.

That become visible in the seventh and, at the end of the eighth, he knew the fight was his to win.

"In about the sixth round, I felt my pressure and my punches were doing some injury to Cotto," Margarito. "I always said Cotto was tough. I never took his punch for advantage. He did hit hard, but he never hurt me.

"I felt I hurt Cotto in the sixth. I felt he was slowing down. In the eighth round, I told my trainer, 'I'm going to knock him out.' My trainer said, 'I'm sure you are, but don't get overconfident and be careful.' "

Cotto earned a guarantee of $3 million but with his share of the pay-per-view returns, Arum said he likely made $7 million on Saturday for taking a frightful beating. Margarito made a guarantee of $1.5 million "and a whole lot more on pay-per-view," Arum said.

And he'll make a whole lot more in his next few fights, based on his spectacular effort on Saturday.

Just don't expect him to make any of it from beating up on De La Hoya.