Pride N' Punishment, A True Grudge Match(tony &pw,GREAT READ)

http://www.maxboxing.com/Kim/Kim060607.asp

WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito defends his crown against top-ranked Paul Williams at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California on July 14th. But in an entertaining press conference where Margarito was compared to a mule versus their tractor (by Williams' trainer George Peterson) and Williams was likened to an giraffe that runs for it's life in Africa (by Margarito's cornerman, Javier Capetillo), most of the talk centered around the fabled sparring sessions that occurred between the two in August of 2004.

Back then, Margarito was preparing to challenge Daniel Santos for his WBO 154-pound title. Williams, then just a relatively unknown prospect, was brought in to give Margarito some southpaw work.

In the subsequent years, what happened at the LA Boxing Club has been heavily debated between the two camps. And as Williams worked his way up the ratings and eventually became his mandatory challenger, Williams became more and more vocal about his supposed dominance over Margarito.

And as there seemed to be hesitation and confusion over whether Margarito was going to defend his belt against him or not, the rhetoric from Williams and his camp only grew louder.

When both fighters, who were present for a Tuesday afternoon press conference at Morton's Steakhouse in Burbank to announce this fight, were asked if things had gotten a bit personal, this exchange would take place between the two at the dais, where both were seated in front of the media:

Margarito: "The situation here is that I'm very, very angry about his lies. There's different ways to do this to get there, when you build your name on my names with lies. I don't even think we should do any fight pose here. Let's just wait for the fight. They'll be some good posing."

Williams: "I don't take nothing personal sir. This is business for me, but the lies, like I said, the truth never changes and I never said that I knocked him down but I did cut him in there and that's what I've been saying from day one. So you know who's been doing all the lying. And he said 'fight pose' or whatever, it don't make me none. I mean, I'm here to win it and I'm gonna win it. Margarito, knows, he said, 'if he wins'. So he already knows the deal. He already knows he lost two rounds already with me with the sparring session. Now he's saying, 'if he wins'. He knows what he's going to get July 14th.

"I'm going to mop the floor with him, believe that. You can take that to the bank."

Margarito: "When he feels my punches, I want to hear what he's going to say."

Williams: (interrupting) "That's if you land any punches."

Margarito: "'What have I gotten myself into?'"

Williams: "You gotta land 'em, first. He’s too slow for me. He can't move, he can't even move with me. So I'm going to make it more easy for him, I'm going to stand there and I'm just going to bust him up. I'm just going to sit there and see if he can eat some of that."

Then, after a stony silence, a giddy Dan Goossen, who won the right to promote this event, which he is billing 'Pride N' Punishment', would state, "Oh, I'm excited!!! We got two fighters. Any other questions? You want to provoke anything out there anyone?"

There's no need for that. Margarito and Williams have all the incentive they need to get after it on July 14th.

Months of haggling between promoters, barbs traded through the media, lawsuits - which nearly included litigation between Margarito and his own promoter, Top Rank - and then the brewing animosity between the two fighters, have made 'Pride N' Punishmen't much more anticipated than anyone can have imagined at the beginning of the year.

"I think we all knew it was big, that's why the lawsuits and all of that. Look, it's a can't-miss and when you have a can't-miss in this business with two guys in their prime, in essence, it's got big written all over it," said Goossen.

During this quagmire, it was Margarito, who seemingly went against the wishes of Top Rank to vacate his belt and face Miguel Cotto, who stepped up and face 'the Punisher' and not vacate his belt.

“That’s why I had to throw in 'the Pride' in there because that's Margarito," said the promoter. "We all know that. There's no secrets there. He was penciled in elsewhere, but if it meant giving up his title, he wouldn't go for it. And that's what we need in this business is less ill, throwing away the titles, unless the mandatory is someone who shouldn't be the mandatory. In this case, this is one of the biggest fights out there in boxing."

In Williams, Margarito is defending his title against one of the most difficult and awkward styles in the sport. The 6'1 lefty is a tall and lanky fighter who throws an array of punches.

When asked about what he recalled about those 2004 sparring sessions, he would tell Maxboxing: "We got in there, my style, it's just me. I'm very elusive in the ring. I was giving him trouble in the sparring. I wasn't trying to hurt him or nothing. I was just doing my thing, my normal sparring and it was too much for him to deal with. He couldn't deal with the movement, he couldn't deal with the hand-speed or the quickness or the footwork. He couldn't deal with none of that. So we're just beating him senseless in there.

"And I think our last sparring session, I hit him with a hook and he had a little nick under his right eye and I told them, 'Hey, he cut.' But they wanted him to keep going. So they put vaseline on his eye and they sent him back out. I knew he had a big fight with Santos coming up so I didn't want him to miss that. So I just went to his body. I started hitting him in the body. And I hit him in the body and I hurt him and they stopped it."

According to him, later that evening, he would be jettisoned from their camp.

"His trainer came up to our room and said, 'He don't want to train with you, no more. You hurt him in there.' That's the God's honest truth. I've been saying that since day one. So the truth will never change, but a lie will always change. I never said I knocked him down or this or that. I just tell you exactly what I did - I busted his eye and I hurt him to the body."

Of course, 'the Tijuana Tornado' has a differing recollection of events.

"I just remember him being another sparring partner, another sparring partner that we had in camp," he said through his manager Sergio Diaz. "What I do remember is when we would ask him for extra rounds, he would say, 'No, no, that's enough.' We were actually using him as our second sparring partner. We would start off with someone else and we would end up with him. But he wouldn't want to give us more than two, three rounds."

In the last few months, as he started to hear Williams' account of their sparring, Margarito was a bit non-plussed by what he was hearing.

"It was disappointment, which turned into anger," he would admit. "He was a sparring guy we brought in. We treat everybody fair. We didn't treat anybody like you saw with Mayweather (in 24/7), we respect everyone. It was just a big surprise to us, that's turned into anger."

The fighters did engage in the traditional fight pose for all the photographers and cameramen with no incident. One thing that stood out, though, was just how much taller Williams is than Margarito.

"I remember Williams when I was sparring with him. I remember him being tall," said Margarito, who gives up around three inches to his foe. "There's two things about Paul: he might be tall and he might have a long reach, but, he doesn't know how to use it. I'm going to be taking advantage of it."

This is about as heated as you'll see these two mild-mannered gentlemen outside the ring. But it's clear that this bout has turned into a legitimate grudge match.

"Yes, because when you call somebody a liar and they know you're not lying, that gets up underneath your skin," said Williams, who hails from Aiken, South Carolina. "And you can tell that got underneath my skin when he called me a liar and I know I didn't lie. So yeah, that's why I'm going to mop the floor with him on July 14th."

On the flipside, Margarito says this is the most motivated he's been since facing the last undefeated boxer he took on, Kermit Cintron, in April of 2005, who he stopped in five.

"You're going to see a new, stronger, faster Antonio Margarito. We brought in a new mitt man from Mexico, who's been helping me. I'm working on different things. I'm going to show different things, different movements. You'll see a better, improved Antonio Margarito."

TICKET INFO

Unlike the last marquee match that took place at the Home Depot Center, there is plenty of time to purchase seats.

Tickets are available for as low as $25. The other tickets are priced at $50, $75, $150 and VIP floor seats at $300.

They are available at all TicketMaster outlets and online at www.ticketmaster.com, as well as the Home Depot Center Box-Office (open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.). Group tickets can be purchased online at Aegtickets.com or by calling 1-877-AEG-TICKETS.

WISH I COULD SEE THIS FIGHT!!!!! TICKET PRICES ARE A BARGAIN,GET THEM IF YOU CAN!!!

This is going to be one of the best fights this year. ;D