Manny Pacquaio's team questions legality of Antonio Margarito's gloves

If Manny Pacquiao's fight with Antonio Margarito in Arlington, Texas, tomorrow night settles one issue it should be the Mexican's dubious punching power. Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach, has again raised the issue of Margarito being caught with illegal hand wraps in the moments before his fight with Shane Mosley in January, 2009. He said some fighters have claimed "Margarito punches like a girl" while others say "he's the best puncher they've ever faced". The clear implication is Margarito has used boosted hand wraps in some fights and not others. This fight has already taken on an ugly feel. A video shot in the Mexican's gym, and which has raced around the internet, shows Margarito pulling faces and shaking his hand like someone with palsy, in what appears to be mockery of Roach's Parkinson's disease. In an interview with Fanhouse.com, Margarito's trainer, Robert García, also poked fun at Roach by brandishing a metal knuckle duster, warning him to check his fighter's gloves closely before the fight. "They're so disrespectful to me and the hand pad issues," Roach said. "It's like a slap in the face, like 'we got caught with something, but we're still here fighting'. I think it shows his true character. I don't think they are a good group of people." García said: "This was nothing to do with the disease that Freddie Roach has. We know it's something that we don't wish nobody. It's something personal, something between Team Pacquiao and Team Margarito. I just wanted to make that clear." He claims Margarito did not know Roach had Parkinson's, a defence of staggering naivety. There is a considerable body of opinion throughout boxing that this fight, set at a catchweight of 151lb but billed for the vacant WBC light-middleweight title, should not be taking place at all, given the seriousness of the gloves transgression. Margarito and his former trainer Javier Capetillo deny he had used the augmented padding in other fights but suspicions linger that the beating he gave Miguel Cotto in Las Vegas in 2008 was aided by loaded gloves. Cotto, feared at the time, has never recaptured the aura he once carried and was stopped in the 12th round when he fought Pacquiao a year ago. That fight cemented Pacquiao's already stellar reputation and tomorrow night he reaches for his eighth world title at a different weight. Form and karma suggest he will do it against an opponent whose best years are behind him. Both fighters are promoted by Bob Arum, who lost patience in protracted negotiations with Floyd Mayweather for a fight against Pacquiao. That bout remains on hold while Mayweather readies himself for a court appearance in January to answer eight charges related to domestic violence.