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MOSLEY ANNIHILATES MARGARITO By Michael Amakor - January 25, 2009 Despite, being the
older 4 to1 underdog, replacing his dad as his
trainer, finalizing his divorce from his wife just
two weeks ago, and pending litigation that trailed
his preparation for this fight, Shane Mosley now
46-5 (39 ko's) still comprehensively out-worked,
brutalized and stopped the highly touted and
over-hyped WBA (147lbs) Welterweight champion
Antonio Margarito in the ninth round in front of
20,820 star dotted fans at the Staples Center in Los
Angeles last night. Except for the seventh
round where Mosley seemed to be getting careless as
a desperate Margarito seemed to surge, Mosley
clearly swept all the other rounds with his quick
and persistent jabs, and rapid fire one-two
combinations to the body and head of Margarito
completely dominating the fight with his
aggressiveness and ring generalship. As the rounds
progressed he also began landing clean and withering
overhand rights and straight punches through the
guard of Margarito who was unable to close the
distance against the deceptively stronger Mosley who
gave him angles and muscled him against the ropes
while popping his head with uppercuts and cracking
his body with hooks that wore out Margarito against
the ropes before more withering head shots forced a
knockdown and a standing count which a badly damaged
Margarito managed to beat and be saved by the bell
to close out the eighth round. His corner at this
point hoping for a miracle succumbed to Margarito's
lame protestations that he could continue and
feverishly tried to re-energize him, but it was too
late as Mosley whose killer instinct is first rate
closed the show with accurate head shots followed by
more overhand rights and lunging left hooks that
dropped both Fernando Vargas, Ricardo Mayorga in his
previous fight, and now Margarito down against the
ropes forcing the referee Raul Caiz to intercede
before Mosley could land another career ending punch
at the 43rd second of the round. At 37, instead of
seeing his career slow down to the brink of
contemplating retirement after poor performances
like his generational compatriots Oscar De la Hoya
and Roy Jones, the Mosley express train accelerates
faster with his rejuvenating back to back
performance, already the buzz has began for a
lucrative title unification against the WBA'S Andre
Berto to name a few. For the 30 year old Margarito
who fell to 37-6 (27ko's) his loss was doubly costly
as it was discovered that his hands were being
wrapped with an illegal substance that would have
solidified into a Plaster of Paris type protection
for his hands that would have given him a huge
advantage over Mosley during the fight if the
subterfuge were not spotted by Mosley's camp. As one of the most despised forms of cheating in boxing from time immemorial, this stigma of leaden fists is bound to follow Margarito for a long time and has already began to cast a huge shadow over his immediate and most impressive win over Miguel Cotto last year with ring pundits already postulating that Cotto got beaten not by Margarito but by treacherous hands of stone.
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