By Dan Ambrose: Roberto Garcia, the trainer for former WBA/WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO’s), says that the plan for beating Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO’s) is to box him first rather than just going out looking to slug. In an article by John Martinez at Philboxing.com, Garcia says “The world will see a different Margarito this time around. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to change him completely. If Manny wants to go to war, we will help him get his wish. Our focus is to box, but we are ready for a war if Manny wants to go there.”

That doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me. Why would Margarito and Garcia want to accommodate Pacquiao by choosing to brawl with him, if this is what Pacquiao does best? Isn’t that playing into Pacquiao’s hands? If you know this is Pacquiao’s only real hope of winning the fight, why then should Margarito stoop to his level and try to slug it out with him? I don’t understand that at all. The 5’11” Margarito is going to have a five inch height and a six inch reach advantage over Pacquiao.

Why not use his reach to jab Pacquiao into submission from the outside rather than letting him in close, which is what Pacquiao is going to try to do, to land his faster shots. Margarito may have problems if he lets Pacquiao get near him, because he’s a lot faster and will be able to jump around and use a lot of angles to confuse the much slower Margarito. In his last fight, Margarito defeated Roberto Garcia by a 10 round decision using a combination of boxing and punching. It was strange to see Margarito fighting on the outside, using his jab and not throwing 100 punches per round. It worked for him, but it didn’t look like the same fighter.

Obviously, Margarito used that fight as a warm-up for the Pacquiao fight. He knows that his only real chance at beating Pacquiao is to box him from the outside. If Margarito abandons that plans and decides to slug with Pacquiao, he’s probably not going to last long. I think Margarito could give Pacquiao a good run for the money for about six rounds if he chose to slug with him, but Pacquiao will eventually get to him and take him out if he fights like that. Margarito is just too slow and wide open on defense to beat Pacquiao by slugging with him.

This is why he needs to resist the urge to fall back into his old style of fighting and trying to slug it out with Pacquiao. He’s got so much size and reach over Pacquiao, it’s not even funny. If Margarito can use his boxing skills, he can win this fight. He’s got to be disciplined and avoid trying to fight Pacquiao’s fight. We’ve seen what happens to guys that try to slug Pacquiao; it just doesn’t work out well for them. Margarito needs to focus on staying on the outside, using his jab and keeping the shorter Pacquiao away from him.