Why Margarito's Next Opponent Won't Be Williams

By Dan Rafafel

August 1, 2008
In the wake of Antonio Margarito knocking out Miguel Cotto last week in a fabulous fight, attention has quickly turned to the next fight for the "Tijuana Tornado."
Who will Margarito face next when he returns Nov. 1, the date Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is focused on for his next bout, one he dreams will take place at Dodger Stadium?
It's a question I have pondered and one I have been asked a thousand times in the past week.
It won't be Oscar De La Hoya, who has other plans for his Dec. 6 career finale, which will most likely come against Manny Pacquiao or, perhaps, Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a rematch if he can be lured out of retirement. De La Hoya is too smart to tangle with Margarito, an opponent who poses the threat of serious bodily harm in a fight that won't generate nearly the sort of money De La Hoya expects when such a serious risk is on the table.
Margarito also won't be facing the most obvious and logical opponent, fellow titleholder Paul Williams, which is unfortunate.
Last summer, Williams claimed a welterweight belt when, as the mandatory challenger, he outpointed Margarito in an outstanding action fight that was highly competitive and waged in front of a sold-out crowd at the Home Depot's tennis arena in Carson, Calif.
Although Williams lost the title on a decision in a big upset in his first defense in February to Carlos Quintana, "The Punisher" obliterated Quintana via first-round knockout in the June 7 rematch to regain a belt.
Then Margarito stopped Cotto in the 11th round last week to set up what should be a no-brainer of a rematch.
Instead, Arum said he wants to match Margarito in a unification fight with the winner of Saturday's bout between Zab Judah and Joshua Clottey, who will fight for the belt Margarito vacated in order to facilitate the fight with Cotto. Margarito against either man would be entertaining. Judah always makes things interesting. Clottey had a shot at Margarito in December 2006 and dominated the first half of the fight until injuring both hands. A rematch would be fine.
Judah or Clottey are both reasonable opponents, but neither of them is Williams.
The reason Williams-Margarito II isn't going to happen next, however, has nothing to do with Margarito being afraid to face him. It has everything to do with the animosity between Arum and Al Haymon, Williams' manager.
Arum and Haymon have had a poisonous relationship for the past few years, ever since Haymon engineered Mayweather's break from Top Rank.
The relationship seemed to thaw recently when Arum was negotiating with Williams' promoter Dan Goossen for a potential fall fight between Top Rank-promoted middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik and Williams.
However, the deal went south. Arum said he thought they had a deal and blamed Haymon, not Goossen, for killing it over money.
"We at Top Rank are not doing business with those people with the way they f---ed me around on the Pavlik fight," Arum told me this week. "To string me along for two weeks and make a schmuck out of me, I have no desire to do business with them. They can paint it any way they want. And just so you know, I'm not talking about the puppet [Goossen]. I'm talking about the puppeteer [Haymon]. If you don't want to do a fight, just say it. You don't string a guy along to f--- him up and f--- up his fighter. I almost lost a date for Pavlik because of those people. It has nothing to do with the fact that [Williams] beat Margarito. Frankly, I think Dan was as taken aback by the conduct as I was."
Goossen, of course, doesn't exactly agree with Arum on what killed the deal for Pavlik-Williams. However, now that it is dead (Pavlik will instead fight Bernard Hopkins on Oct. 18), Goossen is ready, willing and able to make the rematch between Williams and Margarito since Williams' money options are few and far between.
While Arum can match Margarito in an interesting fight with the Judah-Clottey winner, Williams may end up on HBO's "Boxing After Dark" for short money in November against meaningless mandatory Michael Jennings of England, who is not a bad fighter at all, but has absolutely zero name recognition in this hemisphere. At least if Williams was facing somebody like Luis Collazo, it would be a more noteworthy fight.
Goossen made his case for the Williams-Margarito rematch when we spoke a couple of days ago.
"My thoughts are we are looking for the biggest and best fights for Paul Williams," The Goose said. "Our feeling is a rematch between Paul Williams and Antonio Margarito is the biggest and best fight this year for the industry. We have to have more of these sorts of fights like Williams-Margarito and Cotto-Margarito. When we have fights like that, we kick everyone's [butt] out there and can bring boxing back to the days that we enjoyed during its heyday. Somewhere we went off course. We milk the system and we didn't give the fans what they wanted. With Williams-Margarito and Cotto-Margarito, we gave the fans what they wanted and they responded.
"It's foolish for either one of us to not consistently, as promoters in this industry, give the fans the best fights. Our regular season is really the pinnacle of championships. If the NFL could have the Super Bowl every week, they would do it. But their system is not made up like ours. We can give fans a Super Bowl fight all the time if we would just do it. A Williams-Margarito rematch is a Super Bowl fight. We could make the rematch if Bob wanted to."
Goossen said he can envision the rematch selling 16,000 tickets at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
"We would price it fair and reasonable," he said. "Boxing needs to present the best and biggest fights it can. There is no reason Dan Goossen and Bob Arum can't come to terms on a fight like this for the benefit of everyone."
Goossen is right, but it takes two to tango.

Contact:

Craig Goossen
Goossen Tutor Promotions, LLC
15300 Ventura Blvd. Suite #400
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
PH: 818-817-8001
Fax:818-817-8005