GRAPEVINE, Tex. – Antonio Margarito is sorry. Brandon Rios is sorry. Robert Garcia is sorry. And all three would now like to move on.
Thursday in a convention room of the expansive Gaylord Texan Resort, some 25 miles north of the stadium where Pacquiao-Margarito will happen, promoter Top Rank hosted a press conference for the fighters who will be featured on Saturday’s undercard. Each received warm introductions from Bob Arum, approached the podium, and then said he was ready, felt strong.
Brandon Rios was an exception. He had a different statement to make.
“First of all, I want to get one thing off my chest,” began Rios, addressing the AOL Fanhouse footage of him, Margarito and Garcia making fun of Freddie Roach’s trembling hands and straining neck – symptoms of Roach’s Parkinson’s disease. “It was between camps and camps. It was a bad video from my behalf.”Then Rios did what he and his camp probably should have done earlier.
“If Freddie Roach is out there, I’m sorry
,” Rios said. “Things got heated up in the moment. And I’m sorry.”
,” Rios said. “Things got heated up in the moment. And I’m sorry.”Before the press conference could conclude, Arum ended with a surprise visitor. Margarito, who did not talk about the video at Wednesday’s main-event press conference, made an unplanned trip to Thursday’s undercard event. He took the podium and explained that the footage of him was contextually inaccurate.
“The video was edited,” Margarito said. “I never, never, would make fun of Freddie Roach with that disease.”
Then Margarito tried to recreate the scene that preceded the odd face and outstretched, trembling hands he showed a reporter’s camera.
“I was just arriving at the gym,” Margarito said. “Someone said to me, ‘Hey, Margarito, Freddie Roach says Manny Pacquiao is going to knock you out.’ I said, ‘Ooh, what fear!’ and shook my hands.
“I wish for the gentleman (Roach) to accept my apology if he was offended.”
Margarito then apologized to anyone else he might have offended.
“If they were offended, I ask for forgiveness from all of those who have that disease,” Margarito said. “Never, never, would I make fun of that disease.”
After the fighters left the podium, Brandon Rios stopped and spoke a bit more about the bad-faith that has accrued to him and the Margarito camp.
“Robert called me and said, ‘Hey, f–k, dude, this sh-t is getting big!’”Rios said about the way he found out from his trainer that the video had gone viral on the internet. “My wife is yelling at me. I feel bad for saying it. Nothing personal. I feel bad.”
Then his trainer appeared and added to the apologizing.
“I just got finished talking to Freddie Roach,” Robert Garcia said about a two-minute conversation he’d had with Pacquiao’s trainer during the press conference. “I told him, ‘Freddie Roach, I want to tell you that I’m very sorry for what happened. Now that I am talking to you, I feel much better.’”
When asked, Garcia confirmed that Roach had been receptive to Garcia’s call.
“I accept your apology,” Garcia said that Roach told him. “And best of luck this weekend.”
Fight week festivities will continue on Friday when all combatants take the scale. The weigh-in will be held at Cowboys Stadium at 5:00 PM local time and is open to the public.
Source: 15rounds.com
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