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November 13 At Arlington, Texas (HBO PPV): Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito, 12 rounds, for vacant WBC junior middleweight title; Mike Jones vs. Jesus Soto Karass, 10 rounds, welterweights; Guillermo Rigondeaux vs. Ricardo Cordoba, 12 rounds, for vacant WBA interim junior featherweight title.
This weekend's big fight may be much better than it looks on paper. Common sense would indicate that Pac Man – the sport of boxing's most popular Super Star, and arguably the pound-for-pound best fighter today – will out-box, wear down, and eventually stopped Margarito, who is currently considered boxing's blackest eye.
The media coverage of Pacquiao is not limited to boxing, or even sports. He holds elected office in his native land; campaigned for Senator Harry Reid; and seems to be seen everywhere. Margarito, on the other hand, was reduced from near-super-stardom to thief, when caught with “loaded” hand wraps before his title defense against Shane Mosley. Only the dedicated boxing journalists report on him these days, always starting with the obvious question: “How could you not have known?”
Will their fight be a cheesy western flick, with a popular young sheriff coming to town to deal with a shady outlaw? Or could Manny find himself in a tougher confrontation than he is prepared for? The HBO series “24/7” is hinting that Antonio Margarito may pull off an upset, but considering that they are selling the fight on pay-per-view, they have an obvious interest in creating such anticipation.
Pacquiao can be expected to try to keep the fight in the middle of the ring, moving side-to-side to keep Margarito off balance, and using his faster speed of hand and foot to land quick combinations and being gone before Antonio can respond. After six or seven rounds, Manny will look to stay inside the pocket for longer periods of time, and go from body-to-head with fast, hard combinations. Margarito will then be forced to either fight to survive, or be TKOed by the end of the tenth round. Margarito, after all, was thrashed by Mosley, and more, easily outpointed by Paul Williams.
But is it possible for the fight to go otherwise? Well, let's take a look. Freddie Roach had ruled out a fight between Pac Man and Mosley before Shane fought Antonio, simply saying that Shane was “too big.” Indeed, Shane is bigger, physically stronger, and hits harder than Pacquiao. Margarito, however, is as much bigger than Shane, as is Shane than Manny. And there is a huge difference in having a taller, larger man coming forward at you in the ring, than someone shorter. It has to do with their leverage, as well as both fighter's plane of punching power.
Likewise, while Paul Williams easily out-boxed Margarito from long range, he is taller and has a big advantage in reach. Williams recently won a very close, highly disputed decision over Sergio Martinez (their re-match is in a few weeks); Martinez then destroyed Kelly Pavlik. I recently watched Sergio shadow-boxing from ringside; he is so fast that I literally could not get a good photograph of him. He is definitely faster than Pacquiao. Margarito is the last guy who really beat him – in fact, Margarito knocked him out. How? Leverage, the plane of punching power.
Especially body-punching. And by no coincidence, “24/7” shows that Margarito is focused on using his leverage to move his opponent backwards, and landing hard body-shots. Considering that Pac Man has been knocked out by body punches twice before, this raises the possibility that it could be a tough fight for him. Even Sugar Ray Robinson found out that there comes a time when an opponent's size, rather than just his speed and skill level, can be too much for a smaller, much greater champion, to handle over a long fight.
I expect that Manny Pacquiao will win this fight. But it could easily be a heck of a lot tougher than he expects.
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