With Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito in training for their hot button bout scheduled for November 13 in Dallas, Texas, talk still seems dominated by everything but the matchup itself. Incredibly, there are still some folks out there purple proselytizing about this fight, apparently in the interest of stimulating a specific G-spot?that of Google AdSense, perhaps.
In addition to the Pugilistic Morals Squad (P.M.S.), who are talking boycotts and watered-down ethics, there are those who have issues with the selection of Margarito based on boxing fallacies. Some complain about Pacquiao requesting a catchweight to fight Margarito and then make drunken wisdom sound like Maimonides when they decry the fact that Pacquio is not fighting a lightweight?Juan Manuel Marquez. They also make the dubious claim that Pacquiao?with a contractually guaranteed minimum of well over $10 million per fight?should be facing opponents who are practically anonymous?Tim Bradley and Andre Berto, for example?despite the fact that Margarito has a bigger name and a far more impressive resume than either of the aforementioned. Bradley ?sells out? a small casino in California because his promoter lurks around the box office snapping up the many, many, many available tickets. The less said about Berto?a man who sold 973 tickets to his last ?championship defense?? the better.
But what about the fight itself? Is it a viable matchup? Or will Margarito wind up a 20-1 underdog like Vivian Harris did going into his bout with Victor Ortiz? Here, it seems, the grumblers also feel Margarito falls short. Many seem to think that the beating Shane Mosley gave Margarito in 2009 finished Margarito as a fighter.
Make no mistake about it, Shane Mosley played a Category 5 hurricane while Margarito impersonated a tin shack all night long, getting blown to bits and pieces by left hooks and right crosses. The defiant grin Margarito broke into now and then during the early rounds turned into a frown, then a grimace, then, finally, a grotesque fright mask of agony when Mosley thrashed him into a quivering heap. Margarito had never taken that kind of beating before, and it remains to be seen if he has recovered from it. But there are folks out there who, like Pythia of Delphi, are certain Margarito is the equivalent of a boxing vanishing act. For some reason, however, the fighters who have shuffled around recently as shot as blown out lightbulbs, like Vivian Harris and Joel Casamayor, for example, are reported to be part of ?stacked,? ?loaded,? and competitive undercards. But Margarito is somehow as weather-beaten as a red wheelbarrow at the bottom of a dry riverbed. In his last start, a near shutout win against Roberto Garcia, Margarito seemed to reinforce that notion by going the distance in an uneventful fight with an unthreatening foe. In fact, he looked like a fighter determined to get some work in at the expense of an inferior opponent who could not harm him without the aid of a taser or a blackjack.
Unfortunately, this fight drew the pundits out of the shadows and behind the podiums, or keyboards, once again: Margarito is shot, Margarito has lost his power, Margarito proved he has been wearing loaded gloves since infancy by failing to knock Garcia out, etc.
Is Margarito really finished? Before he was broken on the wheel by Shane Mosley, Margarito was an accomplished fighter and a ?P-4-P? stalwart. One loss?to another perpetual ?P-4-P? tenant?and Margarito has practically disappeared from Ratings Planet, two dwarf stars away from Bizzaro World. Ring Magazine rates Timothy Bradley at welterweight and junior welterweight simultaneously, but Margarito is not among the top 10 welterweights after being Numero Uno just before his loss to Mosley? At junior middleweight, Cornelius Bundrage, bless his tenacity, is rated despite his mediocre record. (If The Ring makes such a fuss about anointing their own champions and despising the Alphabet Soup boys, why overrate a fighter based on his winning a UNICEF trinket?) Even a rusty, possibly over the hill Antonio Margarito in sparring session mode would powerbomb Bundrage into fractions of smithereens.
Miguel Cotto took a vicious shellacking from Pacquiao last year and managed to come back looking reasonably whole against Yuri Foreman, admittedly not the kind of opponent to judge where a fighter might be regarding his peak. But perhaps Margarito can rebound as well. After all, The Ring ranked Margarito the number one welterweight in the world in 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2008. Why write him off so arrogantly-whoops, so quickly?
In the end, Margarito may be slightly past his peak due to wear and tear accrued over a 16-year career, but he is still a formidable threat to many fighters out there. That he is a reprehensible cheat does not change that fact.
So, on its own merits, is the Pacquiao-Margarito fight worthwhile? The answer is: if you are not a Penny-Click King or a Quaker, why the hell not?
