BY JUN MEDINA SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
Boxing historian Bert Sugar is picking World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao over former welterweight champion Antonio Margarito in their November 13 fight at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium.
Sugar, 73, and former publisher-editor of Boxing Illustrated and Ring magazine, told FanHouse.com’s Elie Seckbach in a brief video interview that Pacquiao is “too fast” for the bigger Margarito, a former three-time world welterweight titlist.
Sugar also thinks that Marga-rito “throws a lot of wild pun-ches,” which would create openings for Pacquiao to deliver his power punches.
But boxing commentator and trainer Teddy Atlas thinks Margarito would pose serious problems for Pacquiao because of his size advantage and power.
“As far as the fight goes with Margarito, I think that’s a dangerous fight for [Pacquiao],” told Percy Crawford of FightHype.com.
“I personally think Pacquiao could lose this fight. I think that you’ve got a naturally bigger guy. He is really the bigger guy because Margarito is a big welterweight. He’s a horse,” Atlas said in breaking Pacquiao-Margarito.
He said the 5’11” Margarito throws a lot of punches and is capable of hitting and hurting Pacquiao.
“[Margarito] presents a lot of areas of danger and real potential problems for Pacquiao that he hasn’t faced for awhile . . . The opportunity is there to hit this guy [Pacquiao],” Atlas said.
Atlas said that although Pacquiao has fought bigger foes before—Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey—none of them is as big as Margarito, who enjoys a five-inch height advantage and seven-inch reach edge over Pacquiao.
Atlas—a trainer who has worked with the likes of world heavyweight champion Michael Moorer, light heavyweight titlist Danny Lalonde and featherweight champion Barry McGuigan—said he finds the
Margarito fight too risky at this point in Pacquiao’s career, adding that there were less dangerous opponents available for him to fight and still make as much money.
“I’m not sure that if I was managing Pacquiao, that I would be saying, ‘You know what, at this point in his career, he needs to fight Margarito,’” Atlas said.
The HBO pay-per-view televised Pacquiao-Margarito will be for the vacant World Boxing Council junior middleweight title (154 pounds) at an agreed catch weight of 151.
Source: manilatimes.net
