Margarito defiant following loss to Cotto

NEW YORK -- Antonio Margarito did what many a battered and beaten fighter has not following Saturday night's 10th-round knockout loss to Miguel Cotto before a sellout crowd of 21, 239 at Madison Square Garden.

He showed up for the post-fight press conference.

Wearing dark shades to conceal a badly cut and swollen right eye that required 12 stitches, Margarito conversed with reporters about the night's events.

An encounter with Manny Pacquiao some 13 months earlier had produced similar results, fracturing Margarito's right orbital bone to the point that the area required three surgeries to repair. 

Cotto was unbeaten when he was dethroned by Margarito as WBA welterweight beltholder following an 11th-round stoppage loss in July of 2008.

Later, an illegal plaster like substance was discovered in Margarito's hand wrappings and removed prior to his ninth-round knockout loss to Shane Mosley in January of 2009. So Cotto has insisted that he believed Margarito's gloves were loaded with plaster when they fought the first time.

Margarito, nevertheless, argued that the fight was stopped prematurely, claiming that he was coming on and was on his way toward repeating his initial conquest of Cotto. Margarito also implied that there was partiality to Cotto, who is 9-0 with five knockouts in New York, and, 6-0 at The Garden.

Below are a few of Margarito's comments made early Sunday morning at the post-fight press conference.

Antonio Margarito on a conversation with Cotto's mother after the fight:

"I told his mother that he hit like a girl. So they asked me if he still hit like a girl. I said, 'What?' The punches didn't hurt. It was just that the swelling got worse and worse.'"

On his belief that there was partiality toward Cotto and that Cotto was being protected:

"I think that there were favoring Cotto a little bit, because of my eye was worse when I fought Pacquiao. The doctor asked me three times how many fingers I was holding up.

"I responded correctly. I think that I could have continued, and I asked for at least one more round. But they didn't want to give it to me. There was nothing that we could do.

We knew that coming to New York, something like this could happen. We feel that we could have done a little bit more in the next round, but we're going to sit down and talk and see what happens next."