Michael Jennings may have taken it easier on Miguel Cotto Saturday night than Bob Arum did all week.Given the current economic climate, no one’s going to be shedding many tears for Miguel Cotto after collecting $3 million for Saturday’s TKO of Brit Michael Jennings. Still, considering his week leading up to the welterweight scrap, I can’t help but wonder if my working conditions at my job are better than conditions at Top Rank. What must Cotto have been thinking?
Consider:
You suffer a brutal beating at the hands of fellow Top Rank employee Antonio Margarito last July 26 after seemingly having control of the fight through most of the early rounds. This devastating loss was not only your first professional defeat, but put you at a career crossroads that had you sitting out nine months thinking about it. Then, a couple of weeks before your comeback fight, you find out your fellow employee had loaded his gloves in his fight against Shane Mosely. This now casts doubt upon not only the legitimacy of his fight against you, but any other fight he’s had with trainer Javier Capetillo. Surely this could provide some sense of renewed confidence knowing Margarito may not have legitimately beaten you?
Surely now you look to Bob Arum, head of Top Rank, who ought to be furious that Margarito could possibly have loaded his gloves against you. After all, you’re of the big dogs in his stable, right? Just the idea of one of his own fighters possibly trying to send you into early retirement and thereby damaging Arum’s investment should be boiling the old man’s blood!
But much to your dismay, not only is Arum not upset with Margarito, he’s actually decrying the decision the California State Athletic Commission handed down Feb. 10, suspending Margarito for a year. He says things like, “To take a kid who's done nothing wrong and revoke his license for a year: Are you crazy? If this was anyone other than a Mexican kid, there'd be a different result. The trainer does something wrong and the fighter who knows nothing suffers the consequences? What kind of nonsense is this?"
Arum is now even talking about skirting the suspension by holding the next Margarito fight outside the U.S. It’s almost as if that suspicious heap that Margarito left you in last June is of no concern to him. Not one word of apology (that we know of, anyway) from Arum, Margarito, or ANYONE at Top Rank. A lot of sympathy for the Mexican kid, not too much for the Puerto Rican kid that may have been getting a plaster facelift for 11 rounds.
Cotto’s contract with Top Rank expires in 2010. Anyone else think he’s going stick around after that? Yeah, me neither. I think there’s a better chance of John Ruiz & Henry Akinwande going 12 rounds without a clinch. Or Teddy Atlas going a whole Friday Night Fights telecast without scoring a 10-10 round.
I think the next time we have a broken water cooler at work, I can take some solace – at least my boss would care if my co-worker hit me in the face with it! If I worked at Top Rank, they’d probably still be protesting my co-worker’s firing. And he’s not even Mexican…
