Antonio Margarito had ‘firm and hard’ bandage wrap, inspector testifies

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The state inspector who supervised Antonio Margarito’s hand wrapping Jan. 24 at the Staples Center testified this morning that Margarito was found to have a suspect bandage wrap inside a knuckle pad that was to be placed atop both his fists before a title fight against Shane Mosley.

Inspector Che Guevara testified that in three years and 150 hand wraps he had never seen such a pad.

‘It was sweat-soaked, thinner and harder in certain areas, not hard as a rock, but firm and hard,’ Guevara said, adding it had a stain ‘like old blood’ on it. ‘It was not flexible. It was very firm.’

The harder pad was first discovered, Guevara said, by Mosley’s trainer Nazim Richardson, who oversaw the wrapping. Margarito’s taped right hand was then unwrapped, where another harder insert was found. State commissioners felt the insert in a plastic bag today.

The other insert is in the hands of the state attorney general’s office. The ‘foreign substance’ on the insert has yet to be identified and won’t be known until mid-March, a state official told the California State Athletic Commission at its disciplinary hearing for Margarito and his trainer Javier Capetillo.

The commission will weigh a possible license revocation for the fighter and trainer. More details to come on Fabulous Forum.

-- Lance Pugmire