Dan Rafael: Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
The scheduled 10-rounder will take place at Casino Del Sol in Tucson, Ariz., and is supposed to air on Spanish-language network Azteca America.
After making a few scattered junior middleweight fights in his career, Margarito will face Perry (18-5, 9 KOs), 33, of Colorado Springs, Colo., at middleweight, according to Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti.
Top Rank is bringing back Margarito (38-8, 27 KOs), 34, of Mexico, in what is supposed to be a soft fight to see if he has anything left after he was destroyed in three of his past four fights -- not to mention his lengthy layoffs because of a bad right eye and the license revocation stemming from the infamous loaded hand wraps scandal.
"Perry is capable, he's won a bunch of fights in a row, and it is not embarrassing," Moretti said. "He should be a good test to see where Margarito is at this stage."
To many, Margarito looks like a shot fighter after he took such massive punishment in his recent bouts.
In December, Margarito was pummelled into a 10th-round knockout by junior middleweight titlist Miguel Cotto in their grudge rematch. Cotto pounded Margarito's surgically repaired right eye into a bloody, swollen mass, forcing the fight to be stopped.
Margarito suffered worse damage to the eye and his face in his previous fight, a shutout decision loss to Manny Pacquiao, who broke his orbital bone and detatched his retina. Margarito was also dominated and knocked out by Shane Mosley. It was in the dressing room just before the ring walks that Margarito was caught with loaded hand wraps.
Margarito's only win in the past four fights was a decision against low-level fighter Robert Garcia, which followed a 16-month layoff because of the license revocation.
Perry has won five fights in a row since losing a six-round decision to former "Contender" champion Grady Brewer in May 2011.
"With Margarito, it's just a matter of getting him back in the ring and winning and seeing how he looks," Moretti said. "He's fighting at middleweight, 160 pounds max, and I think then it's just assessing the next move after that. He still has a big name, so we'll see this fight and go from there. It's a rebuilding thing, and we will see where it leads to."
Top Rank has talked about a possible fall fight between Margarito and middleweight titlist Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (a massive mismatch in my view).
Your random thoughts ...
• I like the fact that Juan Manuel Marquez, one of today's best fighters, isn't just sitting around waiting for another big fight. He desperately wants a fourth fight with Manny Pacquiao, which could come near the end of the year, but there is certainly no guarantee. So Marquez will stay busy by facing Sergey Fedchenko on Saturday night in Mexico City in the main event of the Top Rank split-site pay-per-view card (9 ET, $44.95). More fighters should do what Marquez is doing, which is stay active and sharp (even if not for a mega-payday) for when the big fight does come. Sure, it's a risk. But boxing is all about risks.
• You think Yuriorkis Gamboa will be ordering the Marquez-Fedchenko/Brandon Rios-Richard Abril pay-per-view on Saturday night? Maybe he'll order it then just cancel at the last minute? Gamboa, of course, should have been fighting Rios for a seven-figure payday, but he bailed on the day of the announcement news conference because he is obviously listening to very poor advice from somebody. All Gamboa has now is a lot of free time, a breach of contract lawsuit on his hands from Top Rank (which costs money to defend), the ire of boxing fans and HBO and no fight scheduled.
• I don't love the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Miguel Cotto HBO PPV undercard that was announced this week. From what I have heard from readers and tweeters, it has generated a big shrug. In other words, it's OK -- but certainly nothing to get excited about. Canelo Alvarez-Shane Mosley, the co-feature, was announced ages ago. That's a showcase for Alvarez against a once-great fighter. Does anyone seriously think Mosley has a chance after his terrible (and very boring) recent performances? The other two TV bouts were announced this week -- welterweight prospect Jessie Vargas against Alfonso Gomez and junior middleweights Denadre Latimore and Carlos Quintana squaring off -- and are decent. I don't know who will win either fight, but then again I don't find either bout to be all that intriguing because I don't consider any of the four to be top-tier fighters. So the undercard is decent, but shouldn't it be better when the PPV costs $59.95 (and more in HD)? By the way, I don't blame promoter of record Golden Boy, either. This is Mayweather's call, as he controls what goes on the card and he wanted Vargas and Latimore -- his fighters -- on the PPV.
• So Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.'s middleweight defense against Andy Lee on June 16 will take place at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. Two requests for the Texas boxing regulators: Don't "forget" the drug-testing kits as you did in February for Chavez's most recent fight in your state, and please, please, please, don't let Gale Van Hoy anywhere near a judging stool or assign Jon Schorle to referee.
• I was happy to hear Lee got the shot against Chavez. He has worked hard to get it and deserves it. And I think it will be an entertaining fight. Ideally, the winner will face Sergio Martinez, the real middleweight champion, in September. Of course, I'll believe that when I see it.
• Junior lightweight titlist Adrien Broner is scheduled to fight on an HBO undercard May 19 and still doesn't have an opponent. He never had an opponent, but HBO gave him a slot, anyway. That's one of the many problems with boxing. I like Broner as much as anyone, but why should he blindly be handed a slot? Making matters worse is that Broner fights in one of boxing's worst divisions, and the one interesting and doable fight -- a match with fellow Golden Boy fighter Vicente Escobedo -- wasn't really considered for May 19 because that match is being planned for Broner's HBO headliner date later in the summer. So when I hear that Monty Meza Clay is being considered for Broner's May bout, it's a real downer. That's maybe a two-round fight -- and a non-competitive two rounds at that.
• For all the talent Jorge Linares has, I think it's pretty clear that he's never going to be the star champion many (although not I) predicted he would become. His recent second-round TKO loss to Sergio Thompson was an utter disaster, as he blew a lightweight title rematch with Antonio DeMarco that was set for July 7 on Showtime by losing in bad fashion to an obscure opponent with a puffed-up record. I just don't think Linares, now a loser of two in a row by knockout, is ever going to hack it at the very top of the sport. He simply can't take a punch and he cuts sooooo easily. I wish him luck and hope he proves me wrong.
• Vic Darchinyan had a helluva run as a two-division champ at flyweight and junior bantamweight. He made some terrific fights, scored a lot of great knockouts, talked a lot of trash and got way more U.S. television exposure on Showtime than most little guys (and even many bigger guys) could ever dream of. But Darchinyan is 36 now, still extraordinarily one-dimensional and coming off yet another loss in a bantamweight title bout. He dropped to 0-3 in 118-pound title fights with his loss to Shinsuke Yamanaka in Japan last weekend. Darchinyan, at this point, looks just about done.
• I have no idea what Michael Katsidis has left after so many brutal fights, but he's moving up to junior welterweight for his "Friday Night Fights" main event this week against Albert Mensah, and I'm curious to see what he does have left.
• Isn't it about time cruiserweight contender Denis Lebedev fights an opponent with a pulse? In his past three fights, he has faced two 40-something has-beens (James Toney and Roy Jones Jr.) and one never-was/never-will-be (Shawn Cox).
• Just three weeks until light heavyweight champ Bernard Hopkins faces Chad Dawson in a rematch. I don't ever recall Hopkins being this quiet before a fight.
• Paging Beibut Shumenov.
• Gross title fight of the spring: Dmitry Pirog defending his middleweight belt against Nobuhiro Ishida on May 1. That would be the same Ishida who lost every minute of every round to Paul Williams a few weeks ago. So Ishida lost a complete route and landed a title shot? Pathetic.
• I hope new junior welterweight titlist Danny Garcia and Golden Boy don't try to weasel out of the mandatory defense against Ajose Olusegun. The fight is due, and Olusegun is a legit opponent who deserves his chance.
• DVD pick of the week: One of the most iconic fights in boxing history was back in the news because of its recent 25th anniversary. So it made sense to break out that all-time classic: Sugar Ray Leonard's remarkable decision victory against Marvelous Marvin Hagler to shockingly win the middleweight title on April 6, 1987, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Leonard, the former welterweight champ, was coming out of a three-year retirement to face Hagler in a fight for which fans (and Hagler) had been pining for years. Many thought Leonard, the smaller man and coming off a very long layoff, would be destroyed. Instead, Leonard scored an upset for the ages by fighting an incredibly disciplined bout and, to be honest, breaking Hagler mentally. The split decision for Leonard -- 118-110, 115-113, with one judge going 115-113 for Hagler -- still stirs debate. Personally, I thought Leonard deserved the decision. He won the first four rounds and stole at least three more to properly win.
"I think we do at least 300,000 buys," DiBella said. "The fans want this fight and the media wants this fight. With Arum, who has the biggest promotional company, and I'm a good promoter, too, and we have East Coast fans and West Coast fans for this fight ... we can do a great promotion. Chavez has that magical name. Sergio, whose popularity is growing, is always in good fights. So is Chavez. Let's do it on pay-per-view and get it done. Let's do a deal and launch a promotion. We can do the fight in Las Vegas or Los Angeles or Texas, and we'll put on a great undercard. Let's go.
"There's no way it can't be a great fight, there's no way. Plus, you have a much bigger man in Chavez -- he weighs, like, 180 pounds on fight night -- and a much younger man [26] going in with a Superman talent in Sergio, but a Superman talent who is smaller and approaching 38. And it's a fight fans want to see. People are sick of these kinds of fights not happening. We can work out the split. We would absolutely give Chavez the edge on the split. We understand that."
I happen to agree with DiBella that it would do significant business. We all know Martinez's next fight isn't going to be against Manny Pacquiao or Floyd Mayweather Jr. Forget about that. It also won't be against a top super middleweight such as Andre Ward or Lucian Bute because Martinez has no plans to move up in weight at this point, and I have no problem with that. He's a small middleweight who could more easily fight at junior middleweight than at super middleweight.
So I asked the Fight Freaks who follow me on Twitter whom they would like to see Martinez fight most. I got a ton of responses, so many that I couldn't read them all, but from what I did read, Chavez was the overwhelming choice -- far, far ahead of fighters such as Andy Lee and titlist Gennady Golovkin.
Martinez knocked out top contender Matthew Macklin in the 11th round last Saturday night in New York and, like he did before the fight, again called out Chavez, who owes Martinez a mandatory defense, though the WBC has shamefully not forced the issue.
If Chavez can work out a deal with Top Rank and co-promoter Fernando Beltran, he is ticketed for a June 16 HBO fight at the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas, before a potential fight with Martinez. Chavez's original June opponent, England's Martin Murray, dropped out Tuesday because of a visa problem related to his past prison terms. To replace Murray, Top Rank wants to have junior middleweight contender Vanes Martirosyan, whom it also promotes and who fought on Chavez's Feb. 4 undercard in San Antonio, move up in weight to challenge Chavez.
Martirosyan, who has yearned for a major fight, said that Top Rank has been in touch with his team and that he wants the fight, which I'm told has been approved by HBO if Top Rank can put it together.
"Yes, they talked to my manager," Martirosyan told me Tuesday. "I would love to fight Chavez, and after I beat him, I will fight anyone the fans want me to fight. They told my manager it's a possibility that I would fight Chavez. Yes, I'm willing to go to 160."
One interesting aspect of that potential fight: Freddie Roach trains both of them. I would imagine Roach would stick with Chavez, who is way above Martirosyan on the pecking order of fighters he trains, along with Pacquiao and Amir Khan.
Should Chavez beat whomever he fights in June, I really hope we see him step up and face Martinez, who was stripped of (and wants back) the alphabet belt Chavez now holds.
Billy Keane, Chavez's manager, sounded willing to seriously look at the fight when we talked about it the other night.
Said Keane: "Julio really wants the Martinez fight [after the June fight]. He wants to see if we can get it done. I believe Julio. He's watched [Martinez opponents] Darren Barker and Matthew Macklin -- fighters that are nowhere as big and strong as Julio -- put pressure on Martinez, and he doesn't like pressure. So if the money is right, I am very, very happy to make that fight."
And we would all be very, very happy to pay to watch it.
But Chavez did not duck a postfight drug test after beating Rubio. Unfortunately, Rubio's team caused a stir when it claimed that Chavez "practically fled from the dressing room without leaving a sample."
Chavez did not flee. He was in his dressing room for more than a half-hour after the fight. He showered and waited for a Texas official to come for his sample. If he was fleeing the scene to avoid a urine test, would he have hung out in the dressing room and then spent another half-hour at the postfight press conference?
"It's no more Julio's responsibility to track down the commission so he can take a drug test than it was for Rubio to tell the referee to take a point after he hit Julio low for the fifth time," Billy Keane, Chavez's manager, said. "We abide by the rules. Nobody came to ask us for a sample, which he was ready to provide. We would abide by anything that the commission or sanctioning body asked us to do. No more and no less."
The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation doesn't require boxers to be drug tested. The state, however, usually tests fighters, even if it means just some randomly selected fighters on a card. Texas will also test title-fight contestants at the request of a sanctioning organization.
The Texas rules (which should be changed to require testing, but that's a story for another day) state the following: "A person who applies for or holds a license as a contestant shall provide a urine specimen for drug testing either before or after the bout, if directed by the executive director or his designee."
That didn't happen in this case. Chavez was not tested. Neither was Rubio. And neither were co-feature fighters Nonito Donaire and Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., facts that the Rubio camp conveniently forgot to mention.
In fact, of the 18 fighters on the card, samples were collected from only two: junior middleweight Vanes Martirosyan and his opponent, Troy Lowry.
Texas had intended to collect samples from other fighters on the card, including Chavez, Rubio, Donaire and Vazquez. But Texas screwed up, not Chavez.
The WBC, which sanctioned Chavez-Rubio, screwed up, too. The WBC requires postfight testing in its rules, but says it must be conducted by the local commission. So that means the WBC can order testing but has no way to enforce it. The WBC dropped the ball by not making absolutely certain that Texas officials were prepared to properly administer the tests. Just talking about it at the prefight rules meeting wasn't good enough.
Checking with Texas officials would have derailed any gossip from the Rubio camp. I checked with Susan Stanford, the very capable and always helpful public information officer for the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, who gave me the following statement:
"The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation did not book the drug testing laboratory for the Top Rank event on February 4, 2012. Specimens were taken from Lowry and Martirosyan, but in the absence of the independent testing laboratory the integrity of the samples could not be assured and they were destroyed. No further samples were taken. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation regrets this oversight and is addressing the procedure going forward."
There are reasons why somebody might be suspicious of Chavez, who struggled severely to make 159½ pounds for Friday's weigh-in and then blew up 21½ pounds to 181 on fight night. The reason: After a November 2009 fight in Las Vegas, Chavez tested positive for Furosemide, a diuretic. Diuretics are typically used to assist in weight loss or to mask steroid use.
Chavez should have been tested. So should have Rubio, Donaire and Vazquez. But they weren't. Chavez didn't avoid a drug test; he just fought his heart out.
Texas and the WBC messed up, and that shouldn't happen again. They, not Chavez, made a terrible blunder.
ABOUT THIS BLOG
Dan Rafael
Dan Rafael is ESPN.com's boxing writer. Rafael began writing for ESPN.com in March 2005 after working for five years as the boxing writer for USA Today. He can be reached on Twitter at danrafaelespn.