By Chris Williams: To no surprise, trainer Freddie Roach is predicting a knockout win for his fighter Manny Pacquiao over Antonio Margarito when/if they fight on November 13th. Speaking with Brad Cooney at Examiner.com, Roach had this to say about the Pacquiao vs. Margarito fight: “I am confident in my fighter [Pacquiao] and I do predict a knockout along the way. Margarito is a big guy, so his size will be a little bit difficult. Is he a big puncher? We will see. I will be watching his hand wrapping the whole entire time.” Well, Roach certainly has a beatable enough opponent for Pacquiao to fight. Margarito was easily beaten by 38-year-old Shane Mosley last year by a 9th round TKO.
And in Margarito’s comeback fight against Roberto Garcia this year, Margarito was the weaker puncher and looked slow and lost many of the exchanges against Garcia. Margarito’s old power was missing and he spent a lot of the time running around the ring, trying to stay away from Garcia. In looking at that fight, I guess I’m not surprised that Margarito has been selected as Pacquiao’s next opponent. Margarito looks completely vulnerable.
I think Margarito would lose to many of the top junior middleweights right now, and many of the top welterweights. He seems to have lost his power and is even slower than he used to be. And when you throw in the 151 pound catchweight that he’ll be fighting Pacquiao against on November 13th, it’s easy to see Pacquiao getting the knockout win that Roach is predicting. It’s too bad that Pacquiao wasn’t directed at Sergio Martinez instead of Margarito. That would have been interesting to see Roach predicting another knockout win for Pacquiao and then having to come up with excuses after Pacquiao would likely lose the fight. Margarito is what he is – another beatable fighter for Pacquiao to feast on.
Like many of Pacquiao’s recent opponents, such as Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya and Joshua Clottey, Margarito is coming off of a recent loss at the time that he’s being matched up against Pacquiao. In other words, Margarito is struggling and ripe for the pickings. He’s only fought once in the junior middleweight division in the past six years, and yet he’s fighting Pacquiao for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title. Pacquiao has never fought at junior middleweight. I wonder what the other junior middleweight contenders feel about this.
Their promoter Bob Arum is doing everything he can to make this fight happen by working feverishly at trying to get Margarito’s boxing license to fight in the United States.
Arum wanted the fight to happen now and wasn’t interested in waiting for Margarito to get his boxing license back, redeem himself by fighting three or four top fighters before throwing him in with Pacquiao.
This is a rush job by Arum, and it’s not turned well so far with Margarito being turned down by both the Nevada and California Athletic Commissions in his attempts to get his boxing license back. Margarito lost his license last year after a hardened plaster-like substance was found in his hand wraps before his bout with Shane Mosley. Now disliked by many boxing fans, Margarito has been selected out.
Source:
www.boxingnews24.com
www.newlivesports.com
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