By MARK WHICKER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
OXNARD – On the wall next to the ring, someone put a newspaper photo of a man carrying a crying baby in his arms.
The man looked a lot like trainer Freddie Roach. And the baby's face was Manny Pacquiao's.
This is the source of high hilarity at the Oxnard Boxing Academy, operated by Robert Garcia, who is training Antonio Margarito, who is training to fight Pacquiao.
"That's what Pacquiao is going to look like on Nov. 13," Garcia said.
"A fan put it up," Margarito said, laughing.
That fan superimposed the pictures, but the problem is that there are no recent photos of Pacquiao in need of such rescue.
More often, the relatives of Pacquiao's opponents are covering their eyes or trotting to the exits.
Margarito enters that ring in Cowboys Stadium, on a night that has dominated his dreams for most of the past 21 months.
On Jan. 24, 2009, Margarito came to Staples Center as the king of Mexico and the favorite to nudge Shane Mosley into retirement.
When he left, his face resembled a piñata and his career was dumpster-bound.
Naazim Richardson, Mosley's trainer, inspected Margarito's hand wraps beforehand and found plaster. The wraps were removed, and Margarito's head nearly was, by Mosley's speedy hands.
Then the California commission suspended him for a year, which took him out of U.S. competition.
He beat Roberto Garcia in Mexico five months ago. California reinforced its suspension but Texas granted him a license, and with Bob Arum promoting both fighters, Margarito was granted access to Pacquiao.
Although Margarito is no longer with Javier Capetillo, the trainer in question, he walks under hovering suspicion, because of the massive contrast between his pummeling of Miguel Cotto and his catastrophic loss to Mosley.
Actually, loaded gloves wouldn't have mattered at Staples. Margarito never laid an unloaded one on Mosley.
"A couple of days before the weigh-in, I was feeling very weak," Margarito said, in the lobby of the gym. "It was a question of being too heavy when I started training. I was trying to make weight rather than making the fight.
"I stopped eating a couple of days beforehand. One night I was thirsty and I got up for some water, but I had to weigh myself first. And when I did, I realized I had to take a quick drink and spit it out."
Margarito tried to have a nice meal after the weigh-in but he felt stuffed quickly, and he could not get fortified by fight night. That part of the story makes sense. He got off to his usual slow start against Mosley and then got slower.
Arum and others have said that any illegal substance would have been spotted more quickly in Nevada than in California, but you can understand some skepticism here. Obviously this will be a non-issue in Arlington, with Roach on the case.
Since the last previous fight is always the one that fully occupies the public memory bank, Margarito is considered easy meat for Pacquiao.
Margarito gets hit a lot. Pacquiao likes to hit a lot. Margarito's formula has been to weather storms and then take over. Pacquiao's formula is to follow hurricane winds with tsunami force.
"It's a fight where we'll have our advantages when it comes to the later rounds," said Garcia, ignoring the fact that the "later rounds" in Pacquiao's fights are sometimes the third and fourth.
"We're going to move a little more, have some head movement, and put pressure on. We're going to cut off the ring. If Margarito can take his punch, it will be a long night for Pacquao. Most fighters have given up against Pacquiao. But a guy like Erik Morales, who came in with the heart of a real fighter who isn't doing it for a big payday, was different."
Morales was 1 for 3 against Pacquiao, beating him by decision in 2005 but then losing in 10 rounds and three rounds.
"The fight I looked at was Josh Clottey," said Margarito, referring to a fairly unwatchable decision by Pacquiao in March.
"Clottey was hurting Pacquiao but he didn't throw punches. You have to throw punches. You have to keep it up. You can't wait for him."
The only person who isn't short-selling Margarito is Margarito.
Some mornings he runs for an hour by the beach, with Garcia's other fighters, including Brandon Rios, who is 24 years old.
Other days they go to the nearby mountains.
The kids always wind up chasing Margarito, 32.
"Brandon finally caught up with him this morning," Garcia said. "But he had to sprint."
Rios grunted. "The whole run was a sprint," he said.
"I always enjoy the rivalry thing, the competition," Margarito said, smiling.
He also would enjoy persuading fans to love him again, which will happen if he makes two grown men cry.
Source:
ocregister.com
Garcia, a fighter himself, is anticipating a big win for Margarito when the 5-foot-11 Mexican climbs the ring against the hard-hitting, fast-moving Filipino on Nov. 13.
