By Dave Lahr: With about a month and a half to go before the Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO’s) vs. Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO’s) bout at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas, Margarito is looking totally ripped to shreds. This has got to be the best shape that Margarito has been in since he wiped out Miguel Cotto two years in July 2008. Margarito looks in such good shape, I almost feel sorry for his opponent Pacquiao. I think Margarito is going to chop him up in the same way he did Kermit Cintron and Cotto, only I think it’s going to be easier for Margarito because Pacquiao is going to come right at him and try to trade.
Pacquiao has become spoiled because his last few fights have come against guys that were either shot, didn’t have the skills to beat him to begin with, or just fought stupidly. Margarito has the work rate, power and the conditioning to make easy work of Pacquiao. He’s obviously studied how Erik Morales was able to dominate Pacquiao by throwing combinations and that’s what Margarito will probably be doing. You don’t fight crazy like Ricky Hatton by loading up on one big shot against Pacquiao.
Instead you just hit him with one big unrelenting surge of punches, keeping Pacquiao under and never ending flow of shots to keep him backing up and on the defensive. If you noticed in Pacquiao’s fights, he doesn’t punch when he’s being attacked with combinations. This hasn’t changed no matter how much his trainer Freddie Roach tries to tinker with Pacquiao’s style. In that regard, Pacquiao is totally unchanged from the very first day that Roach began to train him. When Pacquiao is under attack with a fighter throwing a lot of shots, he is what he was in the distant past – a fighter that can only wait until his opponent stops throwing before he can launch his own attacks.
Margarito was missing his conditioning in his last two fights against Shane Mosley and Roberto Garcia. It could be that, drunk on his success with his big win over Cotto in 2008, lost his concentration and motivation to train as hard as he used to. However, now that he’s hit rock bottom, Margarito is fighting as hard or harder than he ever did before. I think this is really bad news for the little Filipino, because he’s going to get hit with a tornado of punches and he’s not going to be able to get his own shots in with enough regularity to be competitive.
Pacquiao’s head and body may have grown as he’s moved up weight, but he’s still a lot smaller than Margarito and doesn’t look look good when he’s receiving punishment. As we observed in his fight with Joshua Clottey, Pacquiao looked like a mess with the few shots that Clottey was hitting him with in each round. Now, if you multiply what Clottey was doing to Pacquiao by 10, you come to the kind of punishment that Margarito is going to be dishing out to Pacquiao in each round. I don’t think Pacquiao will be able to handle the punishment and will cut up, swell up and get broken up like a little doll on November 13th.
credits: boxingnews24.com
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