By Dan Ambrose: Boxing legend Julio Cesar Chavez Sr. chimed in on his views for tonight’s huge fight between Antonio Margarito and WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto. Chavez Sr. really likes the boxing skills of Cotto, but he sees Margarito as having too much heart, too much size and too much courage for Cotto to beat him. Margarito, 5’11”, will be sporting a four inch height advantage over the 5’7″ Cotto and a 6 inch reach advantage to go along with being more willing to sacrifice his body to win.

We already know that Cotto isn’t willing to sacrifice his body in the ring after he took a couple of knees to get out of his fight last time he mixed it up with Margarito in 2008. And in a recent face to face meeting with Margarito on HBO’s Max Kellerman special, Cotto said he wasn’t willing to die in the ring. Margarito said he was willing to die in order to win and you could tell by looking at Margarito’s face that he meant it.

Chavez Sr. told RingTv “I really like Margarito to win. I think that Cotto is better in boxing technique, but the Mexican is stronger, and more brave and has more heart. I think that if he works the body, that’s his biggest chance. The longer the fight goes, the better Margarito’s chance.”

Margarito really didn’t work Cotto’s body all that much in their previous fight because Cotto was always running. Pretty much all of the damage that Margarito did in that fight was from hitting Cotto to the head with uppercuts. I’m sure that Cotto has been versed on how to keep from getting hit with a lot of uppercuts in this fight, but it’s still going to be very hard to prevent that from happening the way that Cotto leans forward when he fights. He naturally crouches and is there for Margarito’s uppercuts. But Chavez is right, the longer the fight goes the more it favors Margarito. He’s got the better engine compared to Cotto and is capable of breaking him down in a prolonged one on one fight. Cotto doesn’t have the size or the chin to stand and trade with Margarito all night long, and he won’t even try to do that. Cotto will be forced to run and that’s going to take a lot of energy out of him.