By Chris Williams: Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO’s) is like a man possessed going into his fight against the 5’6″ Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO’s) for the vacant WBC junior middleweight tittle on November 13th. Margarito, 32, one of the best pressure fighters in boxing, intends on going after the smaller Pacquiao and bombarding him with punch after punch until he crushes him in front of what will likely be a huge crowd of 50,000+ at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. In an article by John Martinez at Box Score News, Margarito says “I’ve seen other guys hit him [Pacquiao] and give him pressure, but then they don’t continue their attack. I am going to go nonstop. If I see he’s hurt, and I’m not going to stop until he’s on the floor. The way he fights, he is open to uppercuts. He’s going to be eating mine and when he does, he won’t want to come inside.”

Margarito is right about Pacquiao’s recent opponents giving up on pressuring him after only a short period of time. Out of the punch that Pacquiao has fought recently, only Ricky Hatton would classify as a real pressure fighter. However, Hatton was quickly knocked out when he kept making the same mistake over and over again of trying to throw leaping left hooks. That was a bad strategy by Hatton, because he had already had to strip off over 30 pounds of fat during his training and anytime you take off that kind of weight, it leaves you often weakened and not as strong. Cotto didn’t look going into the Pacquiao fight after being beaten nearly senseless by Margarito in 2008.

Cotto struggled in his fight before the Pacquiao bout, winning a controversial 12 round split decision over Joshua Clottey and taking a lot of punishment in that fight. Cotto came into the Pacquiao fight still pretty much licking his wounds from his last two hard fights, and after initially trying to pressure Pacquiao early, Cotto abandoned his efforts after getting knocked down a couple of times. He didn’t have faith in his chin and ended up going into the survival mode for the rest of the fight. And Clottey never really did pressure Pacquiao.

Clottey looked content to just cover up and play the part of a faithful sparring partner. But when Clottey did attack Pacquiao, he gave him a lot of problems with his power. Margarito if he can take Pacquiao’s shots and keep landing in high volume, then he’ll beat Pacquiao and probably stop him. If Margarito averages 100 punches thrown per round, Pacquiao won’t have a chance. He won’t be able to take Margarito’s power and work rate and will end up busting up and likely having his trainer Freddie Roach throw in the towel to save the gravy train for another fight. Roach won’t want Pacquiao to get used up in this fight and ruin his chances to keep beating easy marks like Cotto and Clottey.