Pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao doesn’t believe Antonio Margarito’s claim that he didn’t know about the illegal hand-wraps that were discovered prior to his fight against Shane Mosley in which Margarito suffered a 9th round TKO and lost his WBA super world welterweight title at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on January 24, 2009.
In an interview with the Inquirer and ABS-CBN’s Dyan Castillejo prior to his departure for Los Angeles for the kickoff of the three-city promotional tour for the November 13 showdown for the vacant WBC light middleweight title against Margarito at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Texas, Pacquiao bluntly stated “I don’t believe him. Of course he knows about that (the illegal hand-wraps). Its his hands and he watches the taping.”
Pacquiao claimed Margarito denied he knew that a substance believed to be plaster of Paris was placed on his hand-wraps because he was “looking for a way out so his reputation won’t be damaged among his fans.”
However, Pacquiao softened his remarks by noting that Margarito had “paid his dues by sacrificing and not fighting for one year. I hope he learned his lesson and will not repeat the same mistake.”
At the same time Pacquiao said he is not taking any chances, pointing out “we can watch his hands being wrapped because our agreement is we will have two representatives led by my coach (Freddie Roach) to watch the taping.” Reacting to the comments of some boxing writers who wanted him to punish Margarito for what he did Pacquiao said “ no, I can’t do that. He is good fighter. He’s big and skilled and also has power.” Pacquiao added “we will do what we are capable of so that we will win for our country.”
Pacquiao said he will begin training after he returns from the media tour over the weekend following stops in New York and Dallas and although he is not certain as yet where he will set up his training camp, the most likely venue will be Baguio City where he trained for the WBO welterweight battle with Miguel Cotto last November 2009.
Both multi-titled trainer Freddie Roach and conditioning expert Alex Ariza have indicated a clear preference for Baguio with Ariza telling the Inquirer they had “a great training camp for Cotto and Baguio is ideal.”
Pacquiao predicted “its gonna be a good fight because Margarito likes to come forward all the time and throw punches and that’s what we like – plenty of action. For sure there’s going to be a lot of action in the ring and it won’t be like the Joshua Clottey fight” where the Ghana fighter merely took the punches thrown by Pacquiao and hardly fought back.
He said Margarito is better than Clottey and “is a very aggressive fighter.” While conceding that the much taller Margarito will make it “ difficult for me, we have to study his style carefully.” Pacquiao compared the upcoming clash with Margarito to his fight with the similarly taller Oscar De La Hoya who quit at the end of the seventh round after taking an unmerciful beating.
Pacquiao said he was “very thankful to Jerry Jones for being supportive of boxing especially in this coming fight which will be in the Cowboys Stadium because we drew 51,000 fans for the last fight against Clottey and I don’t know how many people will come this time.”
The “Fighter of the Decade” assured fight fans that his mission is “to train hard and to give a good show again.”
While serving as the representative of the lone congressional district of Sarangani since his landslide victory in the May 10 elections, Pacquiao confessed “I missed boxing and it seems so long that I was not in a boxing ring. I am excited to start training.”
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