For Miguel Cotto, rematch is a chance to heal after two losses

Reporting from New York — How do you deal with loss? It’s a subject for lengthy books, can require countless hours of solace and has broken people for good.

Miguel Cotto learned how to overcome loss from his father, Miguel Cotto Sr.

And then Miguel Cotto Sr. died.

“My father was the nicest man I’ve ever met,” Cotto said. “I looked at him every day, every moment I could. He’s who I learned from.

“Seeing how he dealt with the tough things he had to go through, and always got back up.... He taught me how to deal with the toughest loss in my life: him passing away.”

Miguel Cotto Sr. died unexpectedly at age 57 last year of a heart attack apparently triggered by asthma complications, leaving his son to go forward and seek revenge against the man who violently handed him his first boxing loss three years ago: Tijuana’s Antonio Margarito.

They fight Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, where a sellout, pro-Cotto crowd in excess of 19,000 and a pay-per-view audience will observe possible redemption for the World Boxing Assn. junior-middleweight champion.

The pair weighed in Friday, with Margarito at 1521/2 pounds to Cotto’s 1521/4 .

The scales weren’t so kind to Oxnard’s Brandon Rios, who was stripped of his WBA lightweight belt when he weighed in over 135 pounds three times. Challenger John Murray of England (31-1) now has the chance to claim the vacant belt by defeating Rios, and Rios will give Murray $20,000 of his purse.

It’s the dramatic pull of the main event, however, that is drawing interest.

Cotto (36-2, 29 knockouts) was bloodied and beaten down in the late rounds of the 2008 Margarito bout, ultimately kneeling in surrender to Margarito (38-7, 27 KOs) before the 11th round ended.

Blood came from his ears, and Cotto said when he was comforted by his father in a hospital that night, he cried tears that included more blood.

That beating was viewed very differently months later when the California State Athletic Commission pulled plaster-coated knuckle pads from inside Margarito’s hand wraps before his 2009 knockout loss to Shane Mosley at Staples Center.

Miguel Cotto Sr. beat the drum early that suspicion should be aimed at Margarito for how he battered Miguel Cotto Jr. It wasn’t a legitimate loss, Miguel Cotto Sr. said.

The athletic commission’s lead prosecutor was poised during the hearing that stripped Margarito of his boxing license to display a photograph that showed Margarito after the Cotto fight, with torn wraps displaying a reddened area that seemed to match a reddened spot on the later-confiscated knuckle pad.

“I know about the photo,” Cotto said later in 2009, before losing in the 12th round to Manny Pacquiao — his only other defeat.

He agreed to the Margarito rematch reluctantly, unable to deny the riches the match will generate.

“I accept my defeat and never said anything about it until the pictures came out — that was just ridiculous,” Cotto said. “I had fought great punchers before, and my face never felt — or became swollen — like that.

“I say if you do things as a man, accept them as a man. He hasn’t done that.”

Stone-faced, Cotto recently confronted Margarito about the photo in an HBO segment.

“I’ve prepared myself for war,” said Cotto, who became a champion by punishing foes with body blows, smarts and toughness.

He’s aware Margarito had to battle back from a large cataract removal procedure in his right eye to fight again and says icily, “If we see a weakness, we attack it.”

He’s also had a picture of his father tattooed over his shoulder, a reminder of the man who most devoutly had his back.

“My dad would get mad at the Margarito thing after [Mosley], and he was right,” Cotto said. “Margarito played with my health. I believe this is my opportunity to clear all the things that happened to me with his hand wraps.”

This, Cotto vows to show, is how you get over a loss.

lance.pugmire@latimes.com

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