Vaseline and plaster

What's under that glove Antonio?

When I think of boxing and mixed martial arts, images of quick counter hooks and beautiful submissions come to mind. But there has been a recent trend the last two weeks in my favorite two sports and I am not too fond of it. 

Instead of counter hooks and submission attempts, I am now left thinking about vaseline and plaster. 

Yes...you read correctly. Unfortunately, the actions Antonio Margarito and Georges St. Pierre have led me to write a whole blog on two substances I never thought I would have to write about.

Margarito had a tremendous fight with Shane Mosley on Jan. 24 (though he was pretty much a punching bag for most of the match), but that fight could have been badly tarnished if Mosley's trainer, Nazim Richardson, did not have the eyes of a hawk. 

Richardson saw Margarito's hand wraps were bigger than normal, so he asked for them to be unwrapped. Once the wraps came off, pieces of hardened plaster fell out. Margarito went into battle without the aid of his plaster-assisted hand wraps and Mosley made him pay. 

Mosley had no problem picking apart the former welterweight champion through nine rounds, and it was because of his speed. It is ironic that Mosley beat Margarito by getting off his punches faster. Imagine how much worse it would have been if the plaster was in Margarito's hand wraps. His punches would have been slower and Mosley probably would have had an even easier time. 

However, the situation is pretty serious and smuggling weapons inside of gloves is a sure way to open up possibilities for serious injury to an opponent. Boxing is dangerous enough, we don't need stunts like Margarito's to make it more violent. 

The California State Athletic Commission rightfully suspended Margarito last Wednesday. I would like to see the Tornado back in action one day, but only after he is ready to fight with nothing but the power of his own punch. 

If Margarito's suspension was not bad enough, the most hyped match in UFC history had some post-fight controversy of its own. Rumors began flying around that Georges St. Pierre had Vaseline applied to his back in between rounds of his demolition of BJ Penn Saturday night. 

This is a little more comical than Margarito's attempt to cheat, but Vaseline on the back of a fighter in a mixed martial arts fight can be a huge advantage. A world-class jujitsu player like Penn would not be able to control his opponent on the ground if he is slippin' and slidin' all over the place.

While there were legitimate concerns in the hours after the fight, the situation has been examined further and even Penn has come out and said that while GSP may have had a minimal amount of grease on his back, it was not enough to affect the fight. 

It turns out, GSP's corner man was putting vaseline on right above the eyebrows, which is perfectly legal, and then did some weird energy channeling exercise that required him to touch GSP's back. There was a minimal amount of grease left on his hand when he touched GSP's back. 

Normally, this would sound like an insane excuse, but since GSP is fighting out of Greg Jackson's camp, I can believe it. Most of those fighters are very superstitious and believe in those spiritual exercises that channel natural energy. Apparently, rubbing GSP's back and right above his nipple simultaneously aligned the energy within his body. 

I don't know if that works, but like I said, I believe that was actually the case. So it is nice to know GSP didn't cheat, but Margarito tried, and that is very unfortunate. 

Hopefully this trend of controversies in main event fights is just a little fad and will not continue throughout the rest of 2009. This weekend's big fight is between Vic Darchinyan and Jorge Arce. Hopefully these two tremendous boxers will leave their plaster, vaseline, sledgehammers and any other sort of foreign object at home. 

2009 is still young, so let's clean up the little mess that has happened and get back to some quality competition. 

Forecast in LA: Bloody with a chance of a Tornado

If you live in Los Angeles and you feel the earth beginning to rumble underneath your feet, don't worry, it's not an earthquake, it's probably just Antonio Margarito. 

The Tijuana Tornado returns to the ring tonight for the first time since his epic fight with Miguel Cotto in July to defend the Welterweight Championship against Shane Mosley. Margarito is headlining a wild night of fights in Los Angeles with his highly anticipated mach with Mosley happening just 30-miles away from Affliction 2. It's sure to be on the bloodiest nights in Los Angeles. 

Margarito captured my heart and support after his tremendous fight against Cotto, so this has been a match I have been looking forward to for quite some time. Mosley has solidified himself as one of the finest boxers of this generation, but as he pushes 38 years old, this could be his swan song. 

If Mosley loses, I would expect him to look for another fight against a fairly big name because he is still good enough to go out on top. If he wins, I think he might call it a career, though many experts think he will continue to fight for at least two more years regardless of the outcome.   

But the storylines outside of the ring are nowhere near as intriguing as what will be told in the ring. This is a classic matchup of power vs speed. Margarito will walk right through punches to deliver his crushing body blows while Mosley will jump to the inside and fire off lightning fast combinations before retreating outside of striking distance.

In many ways, I see this fight going similar to the Cotto/Margarito fight. I think Mosley will start off strong and win the first three or four rounds. By round five, I think he will start to slow down and Margarito will start to deliver the punishment. 

Both fighters have their weaknesses though. Look for Mosley to keep his right hand low, really low. When Mosley gets in a rhythm with his jab, which he is sure to do, he gets a little too loose and starts opening his stance really wide when he throw his jab, leaving his right hand down near his knee. If this happens Margarito should look to throw a left hook as Mosley jabs. The hook will do major damage whether it lands to the body or the head. 

For Margarito, he tends to forget about his jab. He tends to have a height advantage against his opponents and he will again as he stand two inches taller than Mosley at 5' 11." But if Margarito fails to use his jab, he will be unable to keep Mosley on the outside. "Sugar" Shane should then be able to jump inside and hit his patent combinations at will. 

Though Mosley has never been knocked out in his career, there is a first time for everything and I expect that first time to happen tonight. Margarito will work a lot to the body and slow down Mosley throughout the fight, eventually scoring a knockout in the later rounds. 

Antonio Margarito retains Welterweight Championship via 9th round knockout

On the undercard of Margarito/Mosley is the return of Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero. Guerrero lived up to his nickname the last 11 months as he was nowhere to be found because of contractual problems with Goosen. Now that Guerrero has finally severed ties with Goosen, he is ready to debut at junior lightweight under the Golden Boy banner. 

The two-time featherweight champion was one of the most promising boxers before having to sit out a year, as he had one of the most impressive victories I have seen when he knocked out red-hot prospect Jason Litzau in one of this three title defenses. All his defenses ended with his opponent staring at the arena lights. 

Guerrero should be even stronger and faster at his new weight class and I am hoping for another exciting knockout over Edel Ruiz (31-21-4) . 

I have not seen any of the other fighters on the undercard but Ring Magazine has tagged Matt Korobov and Adrien Broner as two fighters to keep an eye on.