AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 51
Antonio “Tony” Margarito Montiel is a Mexican-American former professional boxer who competed between 1994 and 2017. He held multiple welterweight world championships, including the WBO title from 2002 to 2007, the IBF title in 2008, and the WBA title from 2008 to 2009.
He is featured on Talkin’ Fight today on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live Weekday’s at 7pm EST (6:30 on Fridays) #boxinghistory @TheWorldofBoxing @leosantacruz
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#boxer #boxing #boxingtalkshow
Transcribed:
Hello, talking fight fans welcome once again to another episode of neil the deal featuring neil the deal himself there you are neil.
We’Ve got uh our continuing series of great fighters from around the world and we’re focusing on mexico and have been for a few days.
Few episodes now uh, i understand you’ve found uh uh someone who’s not currently fighting, but was once uh considered a truly wonderful great fighter as well in his own right.
So without any further ado, let her rip nail tell us what you found good evening, graham nice, to see you again, man how’s everything going everything going good today, very good, thanks right on hope, everything’s going well with you guys out there and talk and fight land.
Neil the deal show fans thanks a lot for coming out yeah.
We are going to continue with our mexican fighter uh trilogy.
I guess you would call it or episodes on the mexican fighters around the world.
Now we’ve been talking about the up and comers, but i think i’m going to talk about a guy – that’s uh retired recently, but i really really liked his fights and i thought he deserved to uh for us to talk about him so and we have a bit Of a surprise, graham, i don’t think you know, but i’ll, let you know in a sec here, uh we’re going to be talking, yeah we’re going to be talking today about antonio margarito antonio margarito.
Now before i go any farther i’d like to wish.
Mr margarito, a happy birthday antonio margarito today is his birthday.
Graham nice.
He turned he turned 43 years old today.
So congratulations, happy birthday, antonio and i hope you’re having a good day.
You know i’m sure you are you’re retired now, so every day is probably a good day.
You know what i mean so anyways.
I hope you enjoy your birthday and have yourself a good time with the family.
Now we’re going to talk a little bit about him.
His uh, his full name, is antonio tony margarito, montiel, antonio tony margarito and montiel all right, and he had a uh, a nickname that used to call me out a bunch of nicknames.
But this is the one that i’ve always known him about.
He was the uh el tornado, the tijuana el tornado, the tijuana which in english would be the tijuana tornado all right.
He got that uh moniker because he’s basically a very, very aggressive fighter, uh any of his fights guys.
If you watch he’s always uh he’s got the real fast pace, he pushes the fights really hard and uh.
He throws like a lot of punches in in his fights he’s a very, very uh, quick fighter.
Uh fast fighter he’s got uh power in all both hands.
He’S he’s very tenacious in the ring, or he was very tenacious in the ring, so he’s a great guy to watch.
He was in some big super bouts.
He’S fought basically the best in the world and uh and he’s done fantastic.
So, let’s go over a little bit of that, so his career expanded uh 1994 until 2017 and he was born, as we were saying, march 18th.
1978.
That makes him 43 years old today.
So it’s kind of ironic we’re doing a bid on him and it’s his birthday, so that’s kind of fun right uh.
He he fought in two divisions, fought in the walter weight division and the light middleweight division, and he was originally born in uh.
I believe he was born in in california up until he was two years old and then he moved back to mexico, something of that sort or he was born in mexico.
Two years old, moved to california and then moved back to mexico.
So he has a dual citizenship: i’m not exactly sure.
If anybody out there and talking fight land knows exactly what that is, i will figure that one out and uh, apparently he he fought out of tijuana mexico, so he’s had a really really interesting career.
Now his amateur totals are are pretty good uh.
He didn’t have a very long amateur career due to the fact that uh for financial reasons uh he needed to turn pro because uh he needed to uh to get moving right.
Uh he didn’t uh.
He didn’t have a long amateur career because he needed to make some money to support his family, i guess and and himself so his amateur career totals were like uh 21 fights he had 21 fights of which he won 18 fights and lost three.
That was in his amateur career, so he only lost three out of 21 for his amateurs, not too bad, and he turned he turned pro when he was 15 years old, graham for the financial reason.
So he was very young when he turned pro and he didn’t start out very well.
He started out four and two uh off the bat when he turned pro, but then he went uh.
Then he went on to go 28 28, two and one.
So he started off kind of rough, but then he really won 21 or 25 fights something straight and uh.
Then people kind of woke up and like wow, this guy’s, this guy’s, this guy’s a real contender.
So let’s go over his pro totals now.
He had a total of 50 fights all totaled, there’s that 50 fight mark graham uh.
He won 41 fights out of the 51.
He had eight losses and one no contest which was uh because both fighters at the time it was one of his earlier fights.
They both ended up head butting each other and receiving two severe cuts, both of them during the head butt.
So they had to stop the contest.
It was no contest because both of them were just bleeding profusely from these uh head wounds that they accidentally uh cracked themselves.
You know crack themselves in the head, so that’s why the no contest was in there.
Now he got 27 knockouts of the 41.
Uh wins that he had, that gives him a knockout percentage of 54, so he’s over that 50 mark and uh.
He fought for the first time for the title in july in july 2001.
So it took him about seven years to get a title shot uh in 2002.
He won, he won the first.
He didn’t win the first one but uh in 2002 he won his first world title, which was the wbo welterweight title in 2003.
He made his um light, middleweight division debut.
He moved up one division and in 2006 he fought a guy named joshua claudi.
Have you ever heard of him? Graham joshua coladi doesn’t bring about the next world an ex-world champion, excellent fighter like in the top 10.
All the time and uh that’s a fight guys that you guys might want to watch the reason being.
Not only was it a great fight, but it it.
It created a a record, a box wreck record for punches thrown in a fight by one fighter.
It’S the record so margarito in the uh fight through 1 000.
If you can believe this 1 675 punches in a 12 round fight.
So that’s a record right.
There, 1 675 punches in one fight.
Like can you imagine that is like? I watched the fight and it was like i don’t know man it was just all he did was just keep, throwing it just didn’t end.
I’Ve never seen anything so crazy, so you guys might want to watch that that was that was a heck of a fight.
He uh he ran into some later in his career.
He got.
He got some big big fights.
He ran into uh, of course, manny pacquiao at one point and uh funny enough.
During that fight there was uh.
There was a big weight difference between them.
Uh, apparently, margarita went into the fight at 165 pounds and manny.
Pacquiao was 148 pounds during the fight and uh and pacquiao ended up laying the beating of uh laid up beating on him like, like just 12 rounds of just beat him down.
I couldn’t believe that fight.
I couldn’t, i just couldn’t believe it, but that’ll tell you how how good manny pacquiao is really uh to to dominate a fight like that for 12 rounds straight against a guy who’s 17 pounds heavier than you.
Well, it doesn’t happen very often i’ll.
Tell you that much.
That’S almost 20 pounds.
Graham, that’s that’s a big difference right, so uh in that fight.
There was an issue where he suffered a very severe eye injury and he had a uh.
He had a broken bone in his face, an orbital bone, so he was taken to the hospital.
He didn’t look good after that fight, graham he, he ended up with severe eye damage for life because of that injury in that fight, and that probably you know, was one of the reasons why he ended up kind of prematurely retiring because of these uh continuous high.
This one eye injury he had, and i guess it was obviously affecting affecting his ability to fight right, so he was uh like i said he was hospitalized.
It took him two days or something graham to uh to operate on him, because his face was so swollen.
If you watch that pacquiao margarito fight man you’ll just be like wow poor margarito, like you know what a tough guy like, as i always say, these mexican fighters are tougher than nails like they.
Just won’t.
Go down they’ll take a beating of a lifetime before they’ll quit it’s unbelievable.
So he went the distance, but he seriously he had a face that only a mother could love.
You know it was like unbelievable, unbelievable man.
I was like whoa so uh.
He fought another guy named miguel cotto, who is also a world champion in his own and a fantastic fighter.
He’S fought, mayweather he’s fought, pacquiao he’s fought, margarito, um and, and that was that was another issue.
He i was watching that fight today and yes, he was stopped because of that eye issue.
Again he got a another uh.
His eye was really swollen and they they stopped the fight.
The the the doctor stopped the fight because of it, and then he, he retired, apparently around uh 2013 12, something 11 12 13.
And then he came back in 2016 for a comeback.
He fought three times.
He won all three bouts, but then he finally retired in 2017.
, so he hung it up.
Uh, that’s a that’s a pretty long career, graham, if you’re looking at 90, what were we 94 to 2017 correct yeah? So that’s 94.
2004.
2007.
.
That’S like 23 years yeah! So he he really put it.
He really put in a lot of years into the boxing and man i’ll tell you any of these fights we’re gon na go over his notable fights guys that any of them are absolutely amazing, like this guy was to me he’s in the top five best mexican Boxers of all time he’s in the top five for sure and i loved watching them, so the notable fights that that i’ve watched and i’ve watched – probably i would say – 20.
the five that i really i really liked was um margarito versus that joshua, claudia with the 1675 punches, that’s just that’s a record of all time.
That’Ll probably never be beating that’ll never be beaten.
So that’s an interesting fight to watch uh margarito versus manny pacquiao, although he didn’t fare very well against pacquiao.
At least he went the distance and you can see why uh pacquiao is who he is, and you know that was a big pay-per-view, so uh margarito versus kodo.
He fought him twice.
Miguel cotto, both those fights, were fantastic, guys, you’re gon na love those ones.
He also fought a guy named robert garcia, which was a fantastic fight, one of the garcia brothers, and then he fought a really good fight, but he did end up losing to shane mosley, so he fought mosley and uh.
That was a loss as well, but in any of those fights he wasn’t down and out and uh he basically he just got out scored right.
You know what i mean, but other than that most of fights like i say he had.
He had a number of wins that were really good and and he’s a very aggressive, very strong fighter.
You know he really.
He really gives it.
You can tell he’s given 100 in the ring.
You know what i mean, graham he’s, really given 100.
So i got to thank him for that.
Now we’re going to go over some of the titles quickly that that he did acquire over his career and it was pretty impressive.
I was very impressed with it uh.
He won the welter, the the world welterweight championship of the world three times, which is uh pretty amazing, but uh.
These are a bunch of his other belts that he he was able to acquire in his career.
So his first one was in 2000, he won the wbo nabo uh welterweight title 2002.
He won his first wbo welterweight title 2002 2007.
He won the wbo intercontinental welterweight title in 2008.
He won the ibf welterweight title 2010.
He won the wbc international light, middleweight title and in 2016 he won the wbo nabo light middleweight title, so he had quite a career.
He won three world titles and a bunch of other titles um.
You know intercontinentals and uh international titles, so he’s uh he’s.
Definitely one of the best mexican boxers to ever uh don the gloves and right now i understand he resides in california.
He remarried he’s he’s remarried and uh.
He basically just goes and helps the kids at different functions and stuff and teaches them a little bit about boxing in the community.
So i really like that as a humanitarian part of him and he’s given back to the boxing community and he’s pretty quiet guy, you know he’s just uh he’s just enjoying his retirement.
So thanks a lot uh for the amazing career, antonio margarito.
I really appreciate it again, happy birthday, it is your birthday, i hope, you’re having a good birthday party and uh we’ll be we’ll keep your eye on it.
You know he might be an analyst one day or something graham, you never know he’s a he’s.
An interesting guy and uh we’ll just keep our eyes on him.
You know what i mean.
We certainly will it’s uh.
It’S an awesome episode, i’m glad to uh pull that one out of the hat uh, that’s really good! I i certainly forgot about it uh and upon hearing that uh it all came back.
So it’s really good, i’m sure there’s a lot of other uh talking flight fans out there saying the exact same thing.
It’S like you know these.
You know these.
These guys who’ve had these careers long as they were.
Uh tend to get displaced pretty quickly, and certainly the guy we’re going to be talking about tomorrow.
Night is one of those fellows who displaced a lot of mexican fighters and and he’s certainly the most notable right.
Now, i would argue, anyway, super good stuff.
I really appreciate that thanks very much, neil yeah you’re welcome, graham exactly you know.
Uh margarito was always one of my favorites to watch out in mexico just because he had such an aggressive style and he always had to never give up never give up.
That’S what i always liked about him, even when he was literally graham watch.
Some of these fights he’s he’s blinded in one eye.
He can’t see and he’s still going like, like a freight train, so you know he he never docked.
Anybody, like, i always say some guys, duck other guys for certain reasons, but he didn’t duck anybody in and any one of those fights any one of his big fights guys.
If you want to check out uh a guy who really who really is going to go down, i i guarantee he’s going to go down in the history of mexican fighters as one of the best.
So, congratulations on the fantastic career again hope you’re having a good birthday guys thanks for coming out, really appreciate it.
I guess we’ll be seeing you tomorrow night early, graham 6, 30.
correct, 6, 30.
, all right guys! Well, thanks again and uh take care we’ll see you, then 6 30 eastern standard time tomorrow, night peace out have a good night.
Thank you.
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