.jpg)
At the moment Antonio Margarito is a very confident man. Now deep into a grueling training camp for his November 13th fight with Manny Pacquiao, the Tijuana brawler is looking to redeem his image after being shaken by his January 2009 hand wrap controversy that cost him a year of his fighting career as well as overall respect from the sport.
Magarito has been training in Oxnard, California with his new trainer Robert Garcia at the Oxnard Boxing Academy and seems to be a man with a newfound focus at this point in time. Despite opening up a 7-1 underdog to the dynamic Pacquiao, Margarito feels the Filipino icon will be in for a rude surprise come fight night.
“Pacquiao won’t stand up to my punches,” Margarito declared in a recent interview with John Martinez of FightChronicles.com. “He’s been shook by smaller fighters than me and he will find out the hard way that his punches won’t hurt me.”
Margarito’s bandwagon has begun to fill up more and more in recent weeks and if anything we should have a fairly competitive clash by the time he faces Pacquiao next month. What does seem for sure is just how financially bolstered Margarito will be after the fight, which takes place at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Slideshow: Reliving the excitement of Margarito vs. Cotto: Why the 'Tijuana Tornado' is still a threat
“He is guaranteed $3 million and he has an upside on the pay per view,” Margarito’s promoter Bob Arum recently told the Philippine Star. “So if everything goes the way I think it would go, he should make approximately between 5 to 6 million.”
Arum’s Top Rank headquarters are based out of Las Vegas and he definitely seemed to rub a few people the wrong way his selection of Margarito as Pacquiao’s opponent. Arum knows how to sell a fight, as evidenced by the 50,000 plus in attendance and over 700,000 pay per view buys for Pacquiao’s March domination of Joshua Clottey in the same venue, and he feels he has another hot ticket on his hands. Arum has been quoted as saying that Pacquiao-Margarito could potentially draw 1.3 million buys.
De La Hoya chides Arum on Twitter
Fighter turned promoter Oscar De La Hoya has recently been spotted in Toronto and New York helping promote the December 18th light heavyweight title fight between Jean Pascal and Bernard Hopkins. As president of Golden Boy Promotions, De La Hoya is a busy man these days and also has two big shows lined up in Las Vegas on November 27th at the MGM Grand and December 11th at the Mandalay Bay with the hopeful Juan Manuel Marquez-Michael Katsidis and Amir Khan-Marcos Maidana events.
In an attempt to keep up with the times, the still very svelte 37-year old has been on a Twitter spree as of late as he has been using the social networking site to give away free prizes to his fans and keep everyone updating about all Golden Boy related events. While that certainly makes for good folly, what is surprising is the fact that he is apparently taking some cheap shots at promoter Bob Arum as well.
“What happens is when you have so many promoters it makes life difficult but one day you watch,” De La Hoya claimed. “Golden Boy wants to put the best fights on, believe me we try hard, but all these dinosaurs make it tough. Bob is 90 years old, get my point?”
De La Hoya and Arum currently have been in somewhat of a cold war with one another regarding their promotional entities. Such a fact was typified by the behind the doors talks concerning negotiations for a possible Pacquiao fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr., whom Golden Boy has worked with closely for his past four fights.
While it’s understandable that De La Hoya is going to be competitive in any realm he enters as a professional in the sport, taking shots at Arum like this is pretty low. Arum, who is actually 78 not 90 as Oscar suggested, has certainly had to play hardball several times in his forty plus years in the sport but attacking his age is something that is uncalled for.
Ex-sparring mates Green and Johnson collide on November 6th at the MGM Grand
On November 6th Allan ‘Sweetness’ Green will look to bounce back from his horrendous performance against Andre Ward this summer when he faces off with gritty former champion Glen ‘Road Warrior’ Johnson at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The Showtime-televised event serves as both a Stage Three matchup in the Super Six tournament as well as the co-feature to the Juan Manuel Lopez-Rafael Marquez battle.
What is interesting about that fight is that the two men know each other very, very well through their training days in the South Florida area. Johnson served as a chief sparring partner to help get Green ready for his March 2007 defeat to Edison Miranda in Puerto Rico and the reports are conflicting as to how the sessions went down.
Green trained for that contest out of both John David Jackson’s Contender’s Gym as well as Shannon Briggs’ personal facility and people were in awe of his abilities while in camp. When Johnson worked with him there were those who said the rugged Jamaican really pushed Green to the limit with aggressive style and it should be interesting to see how their fight breaks down on the professional level.
I witnessed Green’s last few days of training for the Miranda bout and he was seemingly dehydrated, as he had to squeeze his body down to 162 pounds as he was constantly wearing a sweat suit. Following their sparring sessions Johnson would stay busy by defeating Montell Griffin a few months later before eventually dropping a pair of fights to then champion Chad Dawson. Johnson is coming off of a decision loss to IBF champion Tavoris Cloud in early August.
Source: Examiner.com
