By Dan Ambrose: World Boxing Association (WBA) light welterweight champion Amir Khan is picking Manny Pacquiao (51-3-2, 38 KO’s) to stop Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO’s) tonight when they meet at the Cowboys Stadium. Khan, who trains with Pacquiao and shares the same trainer as him with Freddie Roach, sees Pacquiao as being too fast for the slower, bigger Margarito. Speaking to Reuters, Khan said “I was quite surprised to see his weight at 144.6 pounds. But the power he hits with, it’s easy for him to hurt anyone. Manny’s going to use his footwork and speed, move in and out, and he’s going to plaster him with so many shots that the referee’s going to jump in and say no more.”

You have to take what Khan says with a grain of salt, because he does train with Pacquiao and the two of them are good friends. The fight could go just as Khan says it will with Margarito getting buried with a flurry of shots and having the referee stop the fight while he’s still on his feet. However, with the size and power advantage that Margarito has in this fight, he could shock the world by not only beating Pacquiao but stopping him and giving him a bad beating.

Pacquiao didn’t look all that great in his last fight against Joshua Clottey in March, as he wasted a lot of time punching the gloves of Clottey instead of aiming his shots. Pacquiao ended up throwing more than 1000 punches, but he wasted his time because he wasn’t aiming his shots and throwing with little power. Clottey easily blocked or took Pacquiao’s shots, and was able to hit him with much harder shots quite frequently. This was with Clottey throwing around 20 punches per round.

If Margarito throws 100 per round, Khan’s prediction might end up going down the drain. I don’t know that Pacquiao can take getting hit 50 to 60 times per round without getting stopped. He is, after all, a tiny fighter and Margarito is huge compared to Pacquiao.