By Chris Williams: Freddie Roach says that his fighter Manny Pacquiao is going to try and beat Antonio Margarito by volume punching on November 13th, saying in their recent press conference “I think we [meaning Pacquiao, not Roach] will overwhelm him with punches. He will land on him with fast hands and combinations. In eight or nine rounds I think we will break him down. Margarito throws a lot of punches and he makes too many mistakes to beat us. He has bad habits and we are going to take advantage of all of them.” If Roach has Pacquiao trying to beat Margarito at his own game, Roach and Pacquiao could go home losers.

Margarito does really well against fighters that stand right in front of him. The only time I can remember ever seeing Margarito lose to a fighter that stood right in front of him was his loss to the lanky Paul Williams in 2007. In that fight, Williams was able to out-land Margarito by throwing 100 punches per round. However, in the second half of the fight, Margarito started to get to Williams with his own punches and was able to punish him repeatedly.

Williams ended up having to move around to keep from getting beaten. In Margarito’s loss to Shane Mosley, Margarito was held a lot by Mosley. It wasn’t Mosley just standing in front of him and trading. Mosley instead was landing short combinations and immediately clinching to keep Margarito from throwing shots. It was a fight where some referees would have likely warned and then taken points away from Mosley for what appeared to be excessive clinching. Margarito likely won’t have to worry about that against Pacquiao, Pacquiao hates to clinch and much prefers to move around on the outside rather than wrestle or tie up his opponents. Anything is possible, though. Roach could have Pacquiao clinching if things start to go bad for the Filipino star.