Antonio Margarito hints at possible boxing comeback

Antonio Margarito denied rumors of a possible return to the ring earlier this year, but admits now that he has felt a "tickle" to get back in the ring, and says he's started running -- but he's still focused on his family, and not his boxing career.

From Salvador Rodriguez:

"What I've done is started running, but I'm really focused on my family, my baby. I do feel the tickle [to return]. I'm not saying that I won't ever return, but I can not say that I will. I really feel that I do not have any outstanding debts with boxing. I did more than I've ever dreamed about. If the day comes when I [plan to return], I'll say something, but I would have to discuss it with my family and then we'll see."

A return for Margarito (38-8, 27 KO) isn't as simple as whether or not he wants to do it, or whether or not his family thinks it's a good idea, or even whether or not we believe as observers that maybe, at 35, he's taken too much punishment. It's a very clear thing: Margarito's surgically repaired right eye is a disaster, and will be an easy target for anyone he faces, from top talents to low-level journeyman types.

We saw something similar when Israel Vazquez took 19 months off after his third fight with Rafael Marquez, and returned in 2009 to face Angel Priolo, a mediocre guy with a puffed-up record who had lost his last six fights. Even against a fighter as ordinary as Priolo, the once outstanding Vazquez was beaten up a little bit, with his bad eye battered by a fighter he once could have taken out with no trouble.

Margarito isn't even as elusive as Vazquez -- no defensive specialist himself -- and that seems to me to spell doom for any return to active competition. This even ignores the question of whether or not Margarito should be fighting at all after his 2009 wraps-tampering scandal.

Do you have any interest in a Margarito comeback? Is there any chance he could become a contender again?