By Dan Ambrose: Freddie Roach believes that Antonio Margarito’s corner should have pulled the plug in his loss to Manny Pacquiao in the 9th round to save him from needless punishment. Roach sees it as a situation where Margarito’s inexperienced corner left him in too long to take punishment when he had no chance to win. However, Margarito was still landing punches and Pacquiao’s shots weren’t hard enough to hurt him and put him down. With the kind of money and fame that Margarito would have won had he defeated Pacquiao, you can’t blame him for wanting to continue fighting.

Margarito’s whole game is to wear down his opponents with pressure. This is what he did in his win over Miguel Cotto two years ago when Margarito took tremendous punishment for nine rounds before coming on in the 10th to hurt Cotto and then stop him in the 11th. If Roach was the trainer for Margarito, you have to wonder whether he would have made a huge mistake and stopped the fight earlier than the 10th.

In an article at Inquirer.net, Roach said I really had a hard time wondering what kept [Margarito] up. He really has a lot of heart. I got to give him that. [I would have] stopped the fight after the eighth or ninth round. But I’m not. He has a young corner, inexperienced. I would have saved him. He will never be a threat again because the punishment he took was too much to make a comeback [from], I feel.”

I don’t agree with Roach about Margarito never being the same fighter. I think he already wasn’t the same fighter he once was after his fight with Cotto in 2008. After that fight, Margarito looked like a shell of his former self in his next bout against Shane Mosley, losing by a 9th round stoppage last year. And then recently, Margarito looked awful in beating Roberto Garcia by a 10 round decision in May. I think Roach is way off on Margarito being shot. I think he was a shot fighter since after the Cotto fight, and that’s probably why he got the fight with Pacquiao in the first place. It’s difficult to see Margarito being selected to fight Pacquiao if this was 2008, before he faced Cotto.

But I do think Margarito won’t be helped any from the beating he took against Pacquiao. I think Margarito is going to struggle even more. However, I think he can still beat Cotto, because he hasn’t looked the same since losing to Margarito. It’ll be an interesting fight because it will match two guys that are clearly showing signs of deterioration. As long as Margarito’s fractured right orbital bone and nose heal up, I think he’s still good enough to give Cotto another beating and stop him just on pressure and conditioning alone. Cotto tends to fold if you stay in the fight and keep hitting him late. I think he’ll lose this fight. Margarito will need some time to recover from the injuries from the Pacquiao fight before he can face Cotto next year. It won’t happen in March. Cotto is going to have to fight someone else for that date, and then look to fight Margarito in June or July 2011.