By Chris Williams: Two-time welterweight champion Antonio Margarito is expecting to have problems against Manny Pacquiao in the first three rounds of their November 13th bout due to the speed and quick movements from Pacquiao, but thinks things will become steadily easier after that. Margarito said in and article at abs-cbnnews.com, “I think I will have a difficult time in the first few rounds with Pacquiao because he’s fast. But once I get the right timing, I’ll be fine.” That could be. Once Margarito starts putting leather on Pacquiao’s face and small frame, he could get the Filipino fighter backing off and staying on the outside more. Erik Morales had Pacquiao covering up for extended periods of time in their first fight in 2005.
Pacquiao tends to go on shut down mode when someone is throwing a lot of punches at him. He’s not crazy. He tries to cover up and ride out the storm rather than risk getting his head taken off while countering. Pacquaio isn’t much of a counter puncher. Some boxing fans may mistakenly think Pacquiao is a counter puncher based on his 2nd round knockout win over Ricky Hatton last year, but that was a fluke thing. Pacquiao is mostly a guy that attacks constantly and usually throws a lot of punches at his opponents without a lot of strategy behind them. In some cases, Pacquiao throws two punches at one time in a kind of amateurish style.
Margarito’s trainer Robert Garcia says “I know he’s [speaking about Pacquiao] trying to move side to side and fight so hard, but our job is to cut the ring and pressure him as much as possible.’ Yes, there’s no secret to what Margarito is going to try and do in this fight. He has to pressure Paccquiao constantly and needs to throw a lot of punches in every round.
It’s safe to say that if Margarito can average a 100 punches thrown per round, he’ll win the fight. But if he comes in at half that number or even less, he’ll likely lose the fight. I don’t think Margarito can win by a decision because Pacquiao is the cash cow of boxing and beating a popular fighter like Pacquiao would take an extraordinary performance to get the judges to side with Margarito. In other words, think of Pacquiao as the home town fighter, even though he’s from the Philippines and fighting in a foreign country.
If Margarito can trap Pacquiao or if Pacquiao is silly enough to try and stand and trade with Margarito, I see Pacquiao getting mowed down from the sheer size and power of Margarito. I’m not really sure how Pacquiao play this because I’ve never seen him stick to a game plan of fighting in an in an out style for 12 rounds before. He usually does the jumping around stuff early and then just goes all out and tries to brawl. It’s worked well for him against the kind of opposition that’s been fed to Pacquiao, but I’m not so certain that brawling will be a smart thing for Pacquiao to do against a big fighter like Margarito. It’s like taking a small car and revving it for too long and putting too much of a strain on it. I think Pacquiao can handle the smaller fighters or the ones that have recently had the stuffing knocked out of them and are coming into fights with him semi-stunned, but not sure if Margarito is one of those fighters.
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