By Dan Ambrose: Antonio Margarito is promising a lot of pain and suffering for WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto for Saturday’s fight. Margarito says he’s going to KO Cotto and leave him to the stretcher team to take him out of the ring. Normally when fighters say this you see it as empty words, but Margarito gave Cotto a terrifying beating that left him looking like he was wearing a fright mask. Now Margarito is looking to do it again but much worse than last time.

Speaking with examiner.com, Margarito said “We’re different. Maybe Cotto will take a knee and I won’t. I just know this fight that I will beat him by knockout and they will take Cotto out of the ring in a stretcher.”

Margarito says he’s willing to die in the ring if he has to in order to achieve his goals of taking Cotto’s World Boxing Association title. Cotto, on the other hand, says he won’t go that far because he wants to be around to look out for his family. Robert Garcia, the trainer for Margarito, says he thinks Cotto is showing his age and he doesn’t think too highly of Cotto’s self-concern.

It doesn’t look good for Cotto that he’s not willing to go as far as Margarito is to win the fight. Given that Cotto quit last time they fought in 2008, his comments about not wanting to risk his life in the ring almost sounds like Cotto is setting the plate for a possible second quit job when the going gets tough.