What's Next For All you Margaretards Out There?

It would seem that after his career defining victory this past weekend that established him as possibly the top fighter in the division, Antonio Margarito should have his pick of the welterweight divison for his first title defense. But not so fast. With his superhuman performance against one of the best fighters in the world, has he furthered his self-fulfilling prophecy of  his past label as the "most avoided man in boxing"? Who is going to want to get in the ring with this guy after witnessing that? It is possible that he may have just put on such a good performance that, whether he likes it or not, he has laid claim to his former moniker.

However, there is one major difference now than from a few years back, when, as the tale goes, Floyd Mayweather Jr. turned down 8 million dollars to fight The Tijuana Tornado. This time he not only has the top crown in the division, but after proving that he could headline a Pay-Per-View event that created so much buzz and excitement (i.e. $$$$$), he now has the the dollar draw to attract nearly any fighter (no matter how badly they would like to avoid him).

With that said, the victory opens the door to a handful of very interesting fights. The original idea was to have the winner of the fight go on to face the The Golden Boy, Oscar De La Hoya, in his grand finale on December 6th. But the name that was always talked about for that fight was Cotto, so when Margarito won and looked like a beast doing it, Oscar said no thanks - declaring that he did not want to end his career fighting another Mexican fighter (another way of saying I want to leave the sport, but not on a stretcher). So thats out.

The next possible intriguing match-up would be with Paul The Punisher Williams, the same man who took the title from Antonio one year ago.  One could argue that the 6'1 freak is the best welterweight in the division - his only loss was avenged in the rematch in under 2 minutes and he beat Margarito who beat Cotto. In the first match-up Williams started to fade in the late rounds as Margarito began to pick it it up, but is was a little too late and he ran out of time. The fight ended in a fairly close decision for Williams.

Next, is the most obvious choice, a re-match of the fight of the year candidate against Miguel Cotto. This fight would draw even more attention than the first and would surely be as exciting, if not better. However, it would be surprising if Cotto took this fight directly after that tough loss, especially when he fought great and gave him everything he had, but still couldn't come out on top.

Finally we have The Pretty Boy.  Will the constant repetition of the fact that he turned down a fight for big bucks against Tony draw him out of "retirement"? We know at some point he is going to come back and pull a Sugar Ray Leonard on us, but would this be the best fight to do it? If he came back and soundly beat Margarito, a fighter that looked nearly indestructible and is still hot from that last fight, he would be building a strong case for his top ten all-time pound-for-pound ranking (and we might possibly stop calling him names).

The Cotto-Margarito bout brought something to boxing that was sorely needed - some major buzz from the regular world. There is no doubt in our minds that a match-up with one of these fighters could inevitably duplicate that success.