By Jason Kim: Antonio Margarito doesn’t intend on going out and being another one of Manny Pacquiao’s punching dummies when he steps into the ring with the Filipino star this Saturday night at the Cowboys Stadium. Margarito has worked himself to the bone to get into perhaps the best shape of his life for this fight, and he’s as ready as he’ll ever be to capture the vacant World Boxing Council junior middleweight title with a win over the favored Pacquiao.

In a comment made to WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Margarito said “I want to tell Mr. Sulaiman that there will be a new Mexican champion on November 13th,” according to inquirer.net. Sulaiman had mentioned earlier that Pacquiao had won “12 of the Filipino’s 24 victories over Mexicans in 61 previous WBC title duels.” Margarito obviously doesn’t want to become another one of Pacquiao’s victims and will be fighting tooth and nail to pull off the upset.

Pacquiao and his trainer Freddie Roach both think that Margarito will be too slow for him to get the win. It remains to be seen if they’re going to be right. Pacquiao has wanted to fight Margarito for the past two years, and likes his chances to beat him due to his lack of speed and his poor defence. Indeed, Margarito is very easy to hit and his lack of hand speed was already exposed last year in a 9th round TKO loss to Shane Mosley. However, Margarito came into that fight having taken off 25 pounds in the last four weeks before the fight and was in no condition to fight Mosley. This time, Margarito has had a lot of time to train and is in top shape and ready to pull off an upset.