By Dave Lahr: Trainer Emanuel Steward is leaning in the direction of Manny Pacquiao to defeat Antonio Margarito on November 13th in their battle for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title. Speaking to East Side Boxing’s On the Ropes Boxing Radio program, Steward said “Even though [Margarito] has a physical advantage, I just don’t think he’s going to be sharp enough to deal with the speed and accuracy and pinpoint punching of Manny.”

Steward could be right, but he’s certainly been wrong many times in the past with his predictions. Pacquiao has got to home that he can take Margarito out early in the fight to save himself from taking a beating from the Mexican tornado.

Margarito likes to throw on average 80 to 100 punches per round, and when you have his kind of size and power, he’s likely to do horrible things to the little Pacquiao with his punches. Pacquiao has put on a lot of weight and weighs nearly as much as Margarito, but he’s going to be like someone putting a Ferrari engine in a small Volkswagen.

Sure, the car will go fast but it won’t have all the other great things that a real Ferrari has going for it. This is why Pacquiao could end up folding if Margarito stands his ground and takes the fight to him.

Pacquiao has been selectively matched in the past two years against fighters that had either just finished taking a severe beating or were coming into the fight weight drained.

Pacquiao hasn’t had to worry about getting hit too much, and that’s given the illusion that he’s dominating as he moves up in weight. He’s dominating all right, but he’s dominating fighters that had just finished taking a beating or had starved themselves on deer meat.

This is why it’s going to be interesting to see what Margarito does to Pacquiao’s head and body with his power shots. I can see Pacquiao getting cut badly over both eyes, and his nose twisted around like a question mark, and lips ripped and bleeding blood.

Pacquiao will be forced to swallow a lot of the blood and it’s going to fill his stomach quickly, making him feel sick. I don’t think this is going to go well for Pacquiao.