It's
interesting to note that not only was Lathan at this press conference, she was
seated on the podium with the participants and spoke glowingly about this
event. This seemed more than just a taciturn endorsement of this fight. Lathan
even gave a very public pronouncement, “Whenever Bob [Arum of Top Rank] comes
to town, he comes to town and really throws out the red carpet. That's what we
need in New York. I can't tell you how proud, how happy we are at the
commission to have such a beginning of Madison Square Garden- once she has a
new facelift that is- that we are going to be the ones to help open it. This is
a great show. Both shows are going to be a great show [which included Nonito Donaire
vs. Omar Narvaez on October 22] and we're just really looking forward to these
exciting- both evenings of boxing,” later adding, “I have a great crew, which
in part helps to maintain and make sure that everything is safe as far as the
welfare, the safety of the boxers are concerned. Without that crew and their
dedication, the state athletic commission just would not be, and I am very
happy to have them on my team. I applaud them myself. Come out to the show;
know that everything is going to go well and best of luck to both participants.
Thank you again.”
So
what changed?
Was
Lathan merely there for a free lunch? There is a strong possibility that she
was a leader of a house divided who, with strong pressure from the ABC, never
wanted Margarito licensed in the first place. With that the NYSAC really was
looking forward to a great night of boxing on December 3rd at the
newly renovated Garden. But with one catch- the pugilistic pariah that is
Margarito, who many believed used loaded gloves in his first encounter with
Cotto (and his other contests), would not be licensed when it was all said and
done.
When
push came to shove as the calendar turned to November, with Top Rank well on
its way to a sell-out, surely the promotional giant would replace Margarito
with perhaps Vanes Martirosyan, the way Joe Girardi calls the bullpen to get
Mariano Rivera on the hill.
Does
my Oliver Stone scenario sound farfetched?
Yeah,
but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
Just
think about it; if Margarito is being denied a license due to medical concerns,
that's perfectly legitimate. If having the kind of surgery he underwent
disqualifies you to box in the Big Apple, shouldn't that have been made explicitly
clear back in August when Top Rank officials planned this card? Why go through
the charade of understanding Margarito's situation, have their doctors consult
with Dr. Crandall, secure Margarito an extra series of tests and evaluations in
late October (when he broke camp from Mexico and
headed to Utah)? Why was a supposedly black-and-white issue even given the
pretense of a gray area? I'm told that the NYSAC's medical advisory board
expressed its concerns to Top Rank and Margarito's management on October 7th.
And if all this was an issue to begin with, why was “Free Lunch” Lathan in
attendance at the original media gathering?
Why
wait till now to pull the plug?
Because
it says here that the NYSAC wanted to put this off as long as possible in order
to put Top Rank into a position where they had no choice but to go on with the
show, ultimately Cotto vs. TBA. So while thousands of fans were making plans,
purchasing tickets, booking hotels and flights, the NYSAC may have been
planning to leverage Top Rank into a “bait-and-switch” on the public the entire
time. But there was only one slight-yet fatal- flaw with this plan.
While
the live gate is an important facet of any promotion, with fights like Cotto-Margarito
II, it actually pales in comparison to the pay-per-view possibilities. Yeah,
the Garden might seat around 20,000 patrons (and, from what I'm told, is scaled
for a gate of $3.4 million) but if this card does 300,000 pay-per-view buys,
that means right around $7.5 million for the promotion. And while the “Kangaroo
Court of Gotham City” believed it may have pushed Top Rank to the point of no
return, they were really at the point of no return regarding Cotto-Margarito.
See, the real money in this instance is with the pay-per-view. This was not
just an ESPN card where the main event participants are interchangeable. With
the expenses for marketing, promoting and advertising already paid, you couldn't
have suddenly thrown in a Martirosyan or anyone else on the opposite side of the
ledger from Cotto. And with this fight’s much-talked about first episode of
HBO’s “24/7” debuting this weekend, it was another step toward the
inevitability of this bout.
Right
now, this is a high-stakes game of chicken in which neither side is budging.
Yeah,
there were many other companies that would have stayed in this corner they were
painted into. Top Rank certainly is not one of them. As they started to see
where this was going last week, they immediately started making contingency
plans as various states (all too willing to license Margarito) and venues were
contacted throughout the country. Remember, this is about the pay-per-universe
which doesn't care whether this fight takes place at the Garden, Pluto or on a
hidden barge like the fights of years past.
Let's
make this clear; not just this fight but this whole damn card fit like a glove
at the Garden. Part of the narrative of this promotion is how Cotto will now
have the long-awaited chance to gain revenge on Margarito in front of his
Puerto Rican partisans. If anyone has earned the home-canvas advantage, it's
this brooding, introspective man from Caguas. Then you had the neighborhood grudge rematch
between Delvin Rodriguez and Pawel Wolak. Wherever this card takes place, it's
a good card- but it absolutely belonged here. It was the perfect setting. There
is something electric about the atmosphere of a big card at MSG. You have to
experience it for yourself to really know what I'm talking about and it's
exactly why many of you out there sank your hard-earned money into traveling in
to see this event. It was by far the biggest non-Pacquiao/non-Mayweather event this
sport was going to have in the States in 2011.
See,
when it's all said and done, Margarito is certainly not the sympathetic figure
or the victim here. The consensus is that Margarito shouldn't even have the
right to make a living in this sport anymore. Others think the condition of his
eye should prevent him from having a license (But let's be honest with
ourselves. We can all act like concerned citizens but if guys like Margarito
themselves are willing to risk their own health and safety in the ring, we
barbarians are more than willing to bear witness to this savagery that
entertains us). So if the NYSAC believed any of that, why weren't they upfront
with Top Rank when they were first approached about hosting this card? Neither
side is completely blameless here; that's for sure but I know who's being put
in the middle- again.
Those
who are being victimized here are all the multitudes of fans who, as of right
now, don't really know if they are going to New York to
see a highly anticipated prizefight or just coming in for the weekend to do
some sightseeing. Yeah, seeing the Statue of Liberty isn't
the worst thing in the world but it's quite the buzzkill if it doesn't come
with the opportunity to see Margarito go into the lion’s den and get his
comeuppance. The NYSAC's own (in)action caused many of these fans to make this
commitment, one some of them probably can't really afford. But the allure that
is this twisted addiction has them making, yet again, another foray into this spectacle.
And yeah, the commission’s job is to enforce its own health and safety
standards. That's perfectly understood but it’s also the NYSAC’s job to protect
the consumers.
This
is no longer just a boxing issue but now a political football and a business issue.
The commission has done its best to alleviate any liability it may have by
insisting that a neutral, third-party medical commission clear Margarito but
don't think for one nanosecond that Madison Square Garden (which is already
hurting from the NBA lockout) didn't make itself heard in this whole snafu. This
decision has a serious ripple effect going all the way down to the workers at
that building who, in lieu of missing Knicks games, were hoping to earn a few
bucks on this night. New York was once the Mecca of the boxing world. Now we're
going to see if it's now relegated to hosting “Ballroom Boxing” every few
months.
As I
type this out, Brad Jacobs of Top Rank is on his way to Denver,
where he will soon meet with representatives of the Pepsi Center, and
then to Phoenix,
where he'll huddle with U.S. Airways Arena officials. Meanwhile, other Top Rank
staffers will be in New York with Margarito as he hopes to gain clearance to
fight in that jurisdiction.
Regardless,
this fight will go on December 3rd.
Somewhere,
somehow, someway- with or without the NYSAC and the Garden.
INSIDER'S
VIEW
Here
are the views of someone who is intimately tied with the boxing scene in New
York and has great knowledge of the inner workings of the NYSAC. He didn't want
to be identified for obvious reasons.
On
this whole process, he says, “It's clearly political. You have to remember, the
members of the commission are political appointees now. Not Melvina because she
was inherited by this government but the other guys [deputies Thomas Santino
and Edwin Torres] were appointed, politically appointed. Here's the other thing
too: if this was going to get resolved earlier, they were going to tell
Margarito to take a hike. I think from Melvina, there must've been a thought
that he would be OK'd and I think part of the reason why if there was a delay
by Melvina, it was because she wanted to see the fight happen- not that she didn't want to see the fight happen. I
think she wanted to see it happen. She probably made a mistake in getting it
delayed but frankly, Arum was aware of this guy’s problem and this couldn't
have been any different if it were Nevada or California or New Jersey. In any of those states.
“So
the fact that the doctors are uncomfortable has a lot to do with it. Here's the
other thing; from a political standpoint, the last thing you want to do is overturn
a doctor’s decision,” our source continued. “Because the one thing they can say
is- God forbid there's a problem- the wrong thing happens in the ring, a
serious injury or permanent damage to an eye- and you put political pressure on
a doctor- that's the one area that can get really sheisty. Now, what they've
effectively did just now this afternoon [Friday] was pushing this to an outside
doctor. So now they shove this off to an impartial, outside doctor and it's
still going to be a doctor making a decision. But it this doctor says, ‘No.’ It's
like, ‘OK, we tried. Our hands are clean.’ There's someone else to blame.”
As
for any pressure from external forces to make this show a reality in New York,
my insider explained, “If the political pressure came, it had nothing to do
with the commission. The political pressure that came probably came at a higher
level from the state Attorney General to the governor’s office. If Richard
Plepler at HBO is tremendously politically connected, if he had a phone call-
it wasn't to Melvina Lathan. It wasn't to any of the commissioners. It was to
the governor’s office. Yes, I think there was political pressure at the highest
levels of New
York state government. It
was political pressure- not athletic commission pressure. Don't listen to Arum
about potential liabilities because under no circumstance was Arum or the
Garden or HBO or anybody else going to sue the commission over a medical
decision. No one was going to do that. The pressure that was put on politically.
It was never going to be legal pressure. It wasn't a matter of liability. It
was a matter of ‘Look at all the money being lost. Look at what the delay and
the decision-making process cost me.’”
The
insider believes that what has taken place, “was not ultimately the decision of
the three people in the room” and that “It's great naïveté to believe that this
was in the hands of Melvina and the appointed officials.”
So
in this person’s view, does Margarito get cleared to fight in New York?
“Yes, because now I think that the very fact that they did this was to create
one more opportunity for it to come to New York and I think that like anything
else, you know where a certain doctor might have a predisposition to think a
certain way and others may not. I think it's likely to wind up in the hands of
a doctor- now, I don't think a doctor’s going to give a dishonest opinion- that
might be more predisposed to let it happen.”
EMAIL
Here's
an email that I was CC'd on, sent by a Mr. Kurtz on this issue to the NYSAC:
Dear New York Athletic
Commision,
I am a big fan of boxing and New
York has a chance to have a huge event on December 3rd between Miguel Cotto and Antonio
Margarito. This will bring in many fans from outside of the New York area to
visit and spend money in your local economy. In this type of economy you should
be very glad to have this type of sporting event, especially when the Knicks
are not playing due to the NBA lockout. The college basketball games Madison Square
Garden have been hosting
are ending as well.
As you should be aware
your Chairwoman Melvina Lathan attended the kickoff press conference for
this boxing event. If there was any issue the commison should not have been
present and made it known that this fight was not approved for the fans who
might buy tickets. If the promoters were falsely promoting something that
wasn't approved and selling tickets you should of at least told the Attorney
General of New York to protect consumers. It was never indicated that there
would be an issue for this fight. With only weeks to go until the
fight, it now seems your commission will pull this event due to concern with
Margarito's eye.
While the commission should always look
at fighter safety, it has been reported that the top eye specialist in the
country has testified that Margarito's eye is okay to fight and I believe your
commission should follow those recomendations.Waiting to make a decision to
pull this fight now after fans have spent money on tickets, hotels and airfaire
is truely a poor decision if you do in fact make that choice. New York has been
avoided by top fighters like Manny Pacquiao due to the high taxes in your
state, and if you pull this fight you can guarnatee you will lose more in the
very near future.
Victor Ortiz fought a great fight
with Andre Berto this year on the East
Coast and a potential
rematch could happen in January. I for one hope that the promoters of
that fight do it anywhere on the East Coast except New York if you pull this fights approval on
Decmber 3rd. Why should promoters with big fights coming up take a chance
with New York? Your commision will have lost the trust with promoters
and fans as they will not want to risk the money only to possibly be
undercut later on. I won't buy tickets to a fight there if you do this and I'm
glad right now I didn't fly out to see my Kansas Jayhawks play basketball. I'm
glad I didn't put money into your economy if this is how your government
commissions work.
This would be a huge hit for boxing at a
time when it's trying to gain some new fans. This would be a great night for
Boxing in Madison Square Garden. An event that should make more promoters
with big fights look at New York as a place to put on big shows. More
than anything though, this will be another government commision making a
poor, and very late decision, that will cost many fans lots of money. Good luck
making tax revenue off the Knicks and good luck getting any promoters or fans
to take risk with future boxing events. Your boxing commision must not care
very much about boxing or combat sports for you to do this. You don't allow the
UFC and you don't care to much about boxing either. So why don't you just
elminate your boxing commission and save the taxpayers money if this is how it
operates?
Chris Kurtz
Then there is this tweet from boxing scribe Ron Lewis of the UK:
“@RonLewisTimes If
NYSAC reject Margarito, it could be end of NY as a fight city for some time.
Feel for John Murray fans who have paid for flights/hotels”
FINAL FLURRIES
It'll be interesting to see what direction Top Rank goes with Julio Cesar
Chavez Jr., who stopped Peter Manfredo Jr. in five rounds in Houston on
Saturday night. I also wonder if HBO's soon-to-be-new regime will be on
board. And no, not for one second do I think Arum will allow Chavez anywhere
near Sergio Martinez...Don't think that there wasn't pressure from the ABC (Association
of Boxing Commissions) put on the NYSAC regarding Cotto-Margarito II...What a
weekend of college football. Nobody had a better weekend, in my opinion, than
Alabama...Denver may not be a boxing hotbed but I remember some very sizable
crowds coming out to see Stevie Johnston at the Pepsi Arena during
his heyday...I agree with the self-imposed bowl ban by Miami.
Might as well try and get any impending sanctions over with as soon as
possible...Can you believe the year Alex Smith is having for the ‘Niners? Jim Harbaugh
is a miracle worker...Will the Packers defense
let them down at some point this season?...And is Bob Stoops of OU kinda on the
hot seat now?...
