By Chris Williams: Two time welterweight champion Antonio Margarito got his dream come true today when the Texas Athletic Commission granted him his boxing license. Margarito didn’t even have to attend a hearing. All Margarito had to do in Texas was pay the $20 application fee and send in his application and that was it. Margarito had twice been denied a boxing license by California and the Nevada Athletic Commissions. With the approval by Texas, Margarito will now be fighting Manny Pacquiao on November 13th for the vacant World Boxing Council junior middleweight title at the Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas.

Pacquiao has never fought at junior middleweight and Margarito has fought only once at that weight in the past six years, but they were able to leap frog over other top contenders in that division for the shot at the vacant. As Pacquiao fans like to say, ‘it’s good to be the king.’ Margarito had his boxing license revoked last year after a hardened substance was found in his hand wraps before his title fight against Shane Mosley in January. At the time, Margarito was the WBA welterweight champion. He was subsequently suspended by the California Athletic Commission for one year.

In a quote from an article by Dan Rafael of ESPN, Margarito had this to say about the Texas Athletic Commissions ruling: “I want to thank the state of Texas for granting me a boxing license which enables me to continue my passion for the sport of boxing in the United States. I have dedicated my life to giving fans of the sport entertainment and excitement.” That sounds good, but Margarito is about as slow as molasses and looks to be well over his head in this fight.

At best, I see this fight lasting six rounds but no more than that. Margarito is probably the slowest fighter that Pacquiao has ever fought before and that’s not a good thing. You got to figure that Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, will have Pacquiao jumping in and out all night long until he stops Margarito. Don’t expect a competitive fight for your money. I can see the undercard being filled with mismatches with prospects taking on 2nd tier opposition and of course, the main event being the worst mismatch of them all. The fight will be helped by HBO, who will be putting together an HBO Pacquiao-Margarito 24/7 four part series to try and drum up interest by the casual boxing fan to purchase this fight. Margarito can’t speak English and Pacquiao speaks only broken English. It’s going to likely have a lot of subtitles and maybe too much of Roach talking a lot. I’m not interested in hearing Roach brag and you can only show so much of Pacquiao’s entourage without it getting dull after awhile. It’s going to need something make it seem interesting.