How big is boxing in Mexico?

Can you hazard a guess how many Mexican boxing fans tuned in to watch Juan Manuel Marquez take on Manny Pacquiao?

Try nearly a third of the entire Mexican population: 37 million give or take. 

In boxing, there isn't a better equivalent to the Hatfields and McCoys rivalry than Mexican boxers stepping into the ring against Puerto Ricans.

These feuds go a little far for my tastes. My closest friend over here in New York is a Puerto Rican who has been fairly vocal in expressing his distaste for any result in Cotto vs. Margarito that does not include Margarito being beaten into blindness (forget submission) in retaliation for the loading of hand wraps in the first fight. 

I can't say that much Antonio Margarito has shown us on HBO's 24/7 has gone a long way in regard to expressing contrition for his actions concerning the Plaster of Paris found in his bout against Shane Mosley. Margarito has actively mocked Miguel Cotto for raising the issue at all. Margarito has denied any knowledge or accountability for Plaster of Paris being found in his gloves, and his trainer has likewise avoided much in the way of confronting the implications of cheating in this manner. 

It's a little frightening to think the sport gave Margarito a pass only because somebody he fought failed to suffer grievous bodily harm in the ring or worse. In the event someone had died in the ring, the crime Margarito was found guilty of and is accused of perpetrating on other occasions would have been dealt with in an entirely different manner.

As far as Miguel Cotto is concerned, Margarito loaded his gloves when they fought. He's provided evidence in the form of photos of Margarito's hand wraps being cracked and furnished further material to implicate Margarito with similar smears of red on the wraps found on his wraps from Margarito's fight against Mosley that were also present against Cotto.

HBO's latest 24/7 (nowhere near the quality or emotional resonance of the first episode) showed us the collateral damage of what loading your gloves can mean: Miguel Cotto's family in the audience watching a husband and a father's life and career being placed into harm's way under the most cynical and immoral of circumstances.

Whether or not Antonio Margarito's gloves were loaded in the previous fight against Miguel Cotto (and if you don't think they were, I'm sure you cheered O.J. Simpson's acquittal), the narrative behind this fight is as loaded as you can get.