Manny Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, thinks Pacquiao will be too fast and too strong for Antonio Margarito on November 13th. In an article by writer Ronnie Nathanielsz at www.inquirer.net, Ariza says “Once we are done preparing Manny… for fight night, I don’t see Margarito lasting more than eight rounds. I really don’t. I don’t think he’ll be able to take Manny’s power. And as far as Margarito pushing him, I think it’s going to be Manny pushing him.” I’m not sure when Ariza became so good at picking apart fights, but I think it really helps that Pacquiao is facing a guy that many boxing fans think is totally shot.
I don’t think Margarito will be able to take Pacquiao’s power either, but that’s why I don’t even understand why the guy was picked to be fighting Pacquiao in the first place. Shane Mosley, who I think has been on a steady decline as a fighter since 2007, was able to totally dominate the slower Margarito with speed and stop him in the 9th round last year in January. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Margarito is going to have problems against a fighter like Pacquiao. Ariza is only speaking the obvious, because it really goes without saying that Margarito is going to have problems with Pacquiao’s hand speed and power.
We pretty much know how Margarito is going to fight by looking at his last bout against Roberto Garcia at junior middleweight. Instead of trying to overwhelm Garcia with punches, like Margarito has done for virtually all of his boxing career, he instead fought him at a distance using his jab and pecking away with mostly single shots instead of combinations.
This is probably how Margarito is going to try and fight Pacquiao, and it’s not going to work. This is such a horrible mismatch that it’s not even funny. How in the world was a fighter like Margarito selected for Pacquiao? This is disappointing. But, yeah, Ariza is right, but so what? They found a guy that looks shot and now Pacquiao is going to fight him. Big deal. How about matching Pacquiao up against Sergio Martinez or Paul Williams. I’m not holding my breath waiting for that to happen. This is just good match-making on Pacquiao’s promoter’s part. They found another bigger fighter who’s struggling and now they’re going to fight him rather than much dangerous guys like Williams and Martinez.
Credits: boxingnews24.com By Chris Williams
