By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach thinks Antonio Margarito will only be good for four rounds before Pacquiao gets to him with his speed and starts to take the fight out of him. In an article at Philstar.com, Roach says “We’ll see a very competitive first four rounds. Margarito will come out attacking. Then, Manny will start breaking him down with his power and speed. He won’t be able to handle Manny’s speed. He’ll begin feeling Manny’s power and remember, he cuts easily. Manny will go on to beat him up badly. I think it’ll be over by the eighth round.”

Roach sounds pretty sure of the outcome of the fight. He’s been wrong before when Pacquiao got spanked badly by Erik Morales and handled pretty well by Juan Manuel Marquez in their rematch in 2008. Of course, Roach probably thinks Pacquiao did great in both of those fights. Margarito can easily do what Marquez and Morales did.

All he has to do is throw a lot of punches like he did in his wins over Kermit Cintron and Miguel Cotto. If Margarito can become a punching machine, he’ll beat the smaller Pacquiao. But if Margarito tries to box Pacquiao like he did in his last fight at junior middleweight against Roberto Garcia, then I suspect Margarito will get beat as bad as Roach envisions.

Roach says “Size doesn’t win fights. Speed kills and Manny’s just too fast for Margarito. It’s easier to bring down a bigger guy than a smaller guy or someone who’s your own size.” I think Roach is talking pure 100% nonsense. If size didn’t mean anything, then why are the Klitschko brothers so dominate? Why isn’t David Haye the man? He’s smaller, faster, so why isn’t he so great?

Roach is flapping his gums again. If Pacquiao is better than Margarito, it won’t be because he’s smaller than him. It will probably be the result of his tendency to change angles a lot when punching and because he won’t be standing directly in front of Margarito and making it easy for him. Being smaller won’t be why Pacquiao wins. If being smaller was an advantage, why isn’t the smaller fighters the best in every division? Roach is babbling again. It certainly helps that Margarito was picked at the point in his career where he is now struggling and not fighting well. That helps Pacquiao a lot.

This isn’t a fighter that is on top of his game, and that makes me wonder why Margarito was chosen now rather than two years ago when he was in his prime. The timing for his selection as an opponent for Pacquiao is very similar to the timing of Pacquiaos past opponents Miguel Cotto, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, and Joshua Clottey. All had been recently beaten and were struggling with their careers when they were selected to fight Pacquiao.