Garcia thinks Margarito’s size, power and pressure will break Pacquiao

By Boxing News - 08/30/2010 - Comments

By Dave Lahr: Roberto Garcia, the trainer for two-time welterweight champion Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO’s), believes the Mexican warrior will break Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO’s) down with his superior size, strength, power and pressure on November 13th in their fight at the Cowboy’s stadium, in Arlington, Texas. In an article by Dennis Guillermo at Examiner.com, Garcia says “Margarito has the strength, the power, he’s hungry to be the best and prove everybody wrong. He’s the bigger man. He will get hit but he will just keep coming and coming and Pacquiao will get tired of just having Margarito on him and landing good shots and eventually you start landing good shots and start breaking him [Pacquiao] down.”

I totally agree with Garcia. This could turn out a lot like many of Margarito’s fights where he just never stops pressuring for an instead, and just overwhelms his opponents with punches. Margarito needs to get back to his pre-Shane Mosley form, though. He can’t look as bad as he did in his fights against Mosley, which he lost by a 9th round TKO, and his mediocre performance against Roberto Garcia last May. Margarito won’t be able to beat Pacquiao by trying to box him like he did against Garcia.

That is a style that will only allow Margarito to survive but not win the fight. For him to beat Pacquiao, he has to get Pacquiao backing up and taking shots. Margarito must meet Pacquiao head on, beat him up in their exchanges and for the Filipino to retreat and start running. That’s obviously one of Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach’s backup plans for the fight. He’s going to try and have Pacquiao initially bum rush Margarito like Pacquiao did with Joshua Clottey last March, but if Margarito gives him stiff resistance and his size is too much for the smaller Pacquiao, then you can count on Pacquiao retreating all around the ring and just looking to land punches in short combinations.

In other words, Pacquiao would be attempting to follow the blue print created by Mosley in his win over Margarito. I don’t think it’s going to work for Pacquiao, because a huge part of why Mosley was able to beat Margarito wasn’t just because of his in and out attacks’; It was because Mosley was able to tie Margarito up with clinching when the Mexican would get near him. Pacquiao won’t clinch Margarito, because that’s something that he never does and probably never will. Pacquiao will have huge problems with Margarito’s pressure and power.

Pacquiao was only hit a handful of times in his last fight against Clottey, and yet Pacquiao looked terrible, like someone that had crawled out of a train wreck. He’s clearly reached the limit of the kind of punishment that his small body can take. The shots from these bigger fighters like Clottey have a huge impact on him. I don’t see Margarito being phased in the least by Pacquiao’s punches. He may be able to knockout little fighters like Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton, but Margarito is a much bigger guy and a legitimate junior middleweight.



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