By William Dettloff

“The Mexican people will never forgive me if I lose. They will lynch me if I lose. I couldn’t return to Mexico.”—Mexican icon Julio Cesar Chavez before his fight with Puerto Rican star Hector Camacho in September 1992

In the days before his win over Kermit Cintron in April, welterweight contender Antonio Margarito thrilled his Mexican fans when he predicted that after relieving Cintron of his alphabet title, he would do the same to the other Puerto Rican welterweight titlists, namely Miguel Cotto and Carlos Quintana. Of course, on the same night and in the same ring in which Margarito stopped Cintron again, Cotto held up his part of the bargain by, not unexpectedly, blasting out Alfonso Gomez, who, as it happens, is Mexican.

And so continues the long rivalry that exists between Mexican and Puerto Rican prizefighters, in this iteration abetted by welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather, who, by refusing to face either Margarito or Cotto, has compelled them to fight one another. As of press time, the fight was scheduled for July 26.

Not that we’re complaining. Cotto and Margarito (or Margarito and Cotto, depending on your ethnicity) is one hell of a matchup and does not need the Puerto Rican-Mexican thing to help build it up. We’d be happy to watch these two if they were a Dane and an Albanian or an Indian and a Pole. Doesn’t matter to us. A great fight is a great fight and these two have the styles and the temperament to produce a memorable battle. But given the history of this rivalry and the quality of the fights it has produced, you can’t help but to expect even more.

October 28, 1978:Thunderous-punching, undefeated WBC super bantamweight titleholder Wilfredo Gomez, product of the slums of San Juan, defends the title against WBC bantamweight titleholder and Mexican icon Carlos Zarate at a packed Roberto Clemente Coliseum. They are 22 and 26 years old, respectively: in their primes. Their combined record is 75-0-1 (74). Gomez wins the first two rounds, but Zarate takes the third. Gomez drops Zarate in the fourth with a counter left hook and then again with a right. After another knockdown in the fifth, referee Harry Gibbs stops it. The Coliseum explodes.

A look at Margarito’s 36-5 (26) record tells us he is no stranger to this rivalry. Two of his worst nights in the ring came against Puerto Rican stylist Daniel Santos. Their first fight, held in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, in July 2001, was called a no-contest when a headbutt opened Margarito’s eye in the first round and the fight was stopped. In the rematch three years later, in Hato Rey, Margarito was getting outboxed when their heads collided again, producing another fight-ending cut. Santos, ahead on the cards, got the technical decision win.

Cotto’s 32-0 (26) record, in contrast, is largely void of the better Mexican fighters, especially for one so experienced as he. His most notable recent wins have come against Americans—Shane Mosley, Zab Judah, Paulie Malignaggi, et al. The only accomplished Mexican on his resume is former WBC lightweight titleholder Cesar Bazan, whom he battered in 11 rounds way back in ’03, as a junior welterweight. Bazan, never a very special fighter to begin with, was already on his way down. In Margarito, Cotto will find a strong, unyielding opponent who, at 30 years old, is at or around his prime.

August 21, 1981: Gomez, still undefeated, rises in weight to challenge the technically brilliant WBC featherweight titleholder Salvador Sanchez of Santiago Tianguistenco, Mexico. He is a prohibitive betting favorite. Before the fight, he says he will die in the ring before he lets Sanchez beat him. He almost does. Sanchez drops him in the first round, then, to the shock of the thousands in attendance at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, he breaks Gomez’ cheekbone and batters him all over the ring before Carlos Padilla stops it in the eighth, just as Sanchez is driving Gomez through the ropes.

For his part, Cotto has, thus far, chosen not to engage in talk about the rivalry that exists between Puerto Rican and Mexican fighters. In reply to Margarito’s shot at the other Puerto Rican titlists, Cotto told the Puerto Rican daily newspaper, El Nuevo Dia, that Margarito should take care of first things first.

“Instead of talking about me, Antonio Margarito should focus on his next fight against Kermit Cintron,” Cotto said. But that’s him. He is not a talker, even by the standards set by other important Puerto Rican fighters, such as Felix Trinidad. Trinidad always preferred to let his talking be done in the ring, like all the great Puerto Ricans (save Hector Camacho).

Cotto is even less forthcoming than that. By all accounts, he is as introverted and private off camera as he is on, and primarily for this reason: He has not been as heartily embraced by the little island, as was Trinidad, who actively sought the adoration of his compatriots. In this sense, he is not terribly unlike Margarito, who, in terms of his status among contemporary Mexican fighters, is several rungs below Marco Antonio Barrera and Erik Morales and even Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Watch that to change, for one of them, in July.

December 3, 1982: Defending the WBC super bantamweight title, Gomez meets WBC bantamweight titleholder Lupe Pintor of Mexico, who had dethroned Zarate. The thousand in attendance at the Superdome in New Orleans are there to see Thomas Hearns and Wilfred Benitez in the main event, but Gomez and Pintor put on a slugfest that overshadows not only Hearns-Benitez, but many fights to come. In a thriller, Gomez wins when referee Arthur Mercante stops it after Pintor is floored twice in the 14th round.

Top Rank publicist Ricardo Jimenez, who works with both Cotto and Margarito, as he has with dozens of other Latino fighters over the years, attributes much of the rivalry to socio-economic disparities between the two cultures.

“It’s not exactly jealousy, but Puerto Ricans have the best of two worlds and Mexicans know it,” he told The Ring. “They have the Latino culture and everything that’s good about that, and also the ways and means of the United States because they’re part of the U.S. In Puerto Rico, they can go out and have a good time because they’re economically better off. In Mexico, the people just have to work hard all the time. Some Mexicans resent them for it.”

Don’t tell that to the fighters and other stars who have risen from the worst slums of San Juan (or to Marco Antonio Barrera, who comes from a fairly well-to-do Mexico City family). But Jimenez acknowledges the basic and undeniable human tendency to see others as richer than you are, whether or not it’s accurate, and to build a stone resentment against them for it. It doesn’t hurt this rivalry that, as entities, both Mexico and Puerto Rico are fervent in their nationalism and love of self. But that cuts both ways.

May 1, 1983: Edwin Rosario, at 20 years old, is a lightweight sensation when he meets tough Mexican veteran Jose Luis Ramirez in Hato Rey for the WBC lightweight title vacated by Alexis Arguello. Boxing smartly, he takes most of the early rounds before fading badly down the stretch and barely holding on for the decision win. They meet again a year later, and Rosario starts quickly, dropping Ramirez in the first and second rounds. Ramirez survives, and in the fourth, hammers Rosario in a corner until Rosario turns away, barely conscious, the lightweight title already on its way to Mexico.

“Puerto Rico never forgave Wilfredo Gomez for losing to Salvador Sanchez,” Jorge Perez, veteran boxing writer for El Nuevo Dia, told The Ring. “And not because he lost. Puerto Rico forgave Trinidad for losing to Bernard Hopkins because he tried, he did his best. But Gomez didn’t train properly. He was four pounds overweight the day before the fight. So the Puerto Rican people never forgave him.”

Like most things that take place in a prize ring, much of the rivalry is about styles, and posturing and pride. Mexican fighters are known worldwide for their toughness and bravery and willingness to walk into the fire of a prizefight without fear or hesitation. It is what makes them who they are. Many see Puerto Rican fighters, conversely, as practitioners of a style that is something less than manly. The recent archetype is Santos, who wouldn’t dare have fought Margarito head on, but somehow “cheated” his way to a win in the second match by boxing. The quintessential figure in this stereotype is Hector Camacho.

“That’s what’s been said,” Perez said. “Mexicans say that Puerto Rican fighters tend to run, but that’s true of fighters in every country except Mexico. It’s true, Puerto Rico has had fighters like Wilfred Benitez and Hector Camacho, but we’ve also had Felix Trinidad. So it’s not like that at all. Puerto Rico has all different kinds of fighters. Puerto Rico loves fighters who can punch and who can box.”

November 21, 1987: Rosario is in his second incarnation as lightweight titleholder, this time the WBA’s version, having flattened rock-chinned Livingstone Bramble to win the belt. He is challenged by undefeated phenom and reigning WBC super featherweight titleholder Julio Cesar Chavez of Culiacan, Mexico. Heavyweight champion Mike Tyson accompanies Rosario into the ring at the Las Vegas Hilton outdoor stadium, and the 8,151 fans chant, “Chapo, Chapo” in approval. It doesn’t help Rosario, to whose rescue referee Richard Steele comes at 2:36 of the 11th round to conclude a fight Chavez dominates from the first moment to the last.

Indeed, there are fighters on both sides who have broken the stereotype. Sanchez was a wonderful Mexican technician whose death at the age of 23 in a car crash was received in Mexico as a national tragedy. He was no face-first brawler. Nor is the recent version of Marco Antonio Barrera, who found at the hands of American Junior Jones that sometimes it is better to move and box than it is to roll and hook. But for the most part, Mexican tradition is you’re not in the fight until you’re bleeding, that if you don’t have a hook to the liver you’re nothing, that if you’re not moving forward you’re running away.

That defines Margarito, whose immense self-belief, endurance, and toughness make him the archetypal Mexican fighter. He walked through the best right hands Cintron could muster, and essentially out-manned him in the perfect confirmation of the Mexican paradigm of Mexican-Puerto Rican matchups. Cintron submitted to him. He had to. He wasn’t the man that Margarito was, wasn’t as tough or as hard-nosed. He didn’t have the cojones.

September 12, 1992: Two of the sport’s lower-weight stars, Chavez and Camacho, meet in front of 19,100 fans at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Each will get $3-million. Their combined record is 122-1. After a good first round, Camacho is ground down by the relentless Chavez’ left hooks to the body. He lasts the distance, barely, and loses the decision by scores of 117-111, 119-110, and 120-107.

Many of the more memorable Puerto Rican stars, excluding Trinidad, were fine technical boxers in addition to being bombers. Rosario was arguably the best one-punch knockout artist of his era, but also had sound boxing skills. Same with Gomez. And same with Cotto. It wasn’t his punch or strength that got him past Mohamad Abdullaev, or Kelson Pinto, or Randall Bailey, three straight-up punchers who might hit harder with one punch than does Cotto.

It was Cotto’s ability to box, jab, and dictate the terms of the fight that brought him victory. It was also that which got him past Shane Mosley. It might be what serves him against Margarito, whom one suspects will do everything he can to make it a streetfight. But even in that kind of fight Cotto is no worse than Margarito’s equal, which is a way of predicting that on July 27, Cotto will still be the toast of Puerto Rico, with no need to ask for forgiveness.