By Chris Robinson
Last Saturday’s virtuoso performance by Manny Pacquiao over Antonio Margarito at Cowboys Stadium has had the boxing world buzzing with all kinds of chatter. In the contest Pacquiao thoroughly dominated Margarito with blazing speed and pinpoint combinations despite giving up 4 ½ inches in heights and a 17 pound weight disadvantage. After twelve one-sided rounds, Margarito was extremely bruised as well as being the victim of a broken eye socket.
After capturing a title in an eighth weight division, the speculation on Pacquiao soon turned to his future in the sport. Despite now having to balance his duties as a congressman in the province of Sarangani in his native Philippines, Pacquiao has hinted that he will fight on and such names as Shane Mosley, Andre Berto, Juan Manuel Marquez and the winner of the January 29th Timothy Bradley-Devon Alexander have been mentioned as possible opponents.
Berto’s trainer Tony Morgan, with his charge since his amateur days, was able to assess Pacquiao’s domination of the Tijuana fighter and gave his respect.
“Manny looked very good, very strong and very fast,” Morgan said. “During the 24/7 [episodes] I had doubts that maybe he wasn’t being serious enough about his task at hand. But when I started watching and I saw the fight that Margarito chose to fight I think that was a mistake. I think that Margarito should have been putting pressure, laying on Manny, pushing Manny around, imposing his size. But he stood back and tried to box. I didn’t really understand that.”
Pacquiao has been a professional nearly sixteen years now and has blossomed into the most accomplished and gifted fighter of this era. While his awkward attack, prominent power and overall quickness make up for much of his foundation as a fighter, Morgan insists there is more to it than that.
“Manny still has young legs,” Morgan says of the soon-to-be 32 year old. “When you have young legs and you can move about like that, I mean he’s hungry. Even after all he has and all he’s done he’s still hungry. He’s still fights hungry. When you fight hungry and you train hungry it’s very hard to beat those guys. Very hard. He makes mistakes but his work ethic and his hand speed and foot speed is going to be tough for anyone to contend with.”
Morgan talked to Berto about the fight and the WBC welterweight champion agreed with his trainer’s assertion that Pacquiao looked solid all around. Morgan and Berto are prepping for a fight of their own in a few weeks time at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas when they will meet the challenge of Mexico City's Freddy Hernandez and he insists everything is ‘right on point’.
In recent months undefeated Philadelphia fighter Mike Jones had been rumored as a possible opponent for Berto. Jones won a majority decision last night on the undercard over gatekeeper Jesus Soto Karass that saw him come out with his guns blazing before gassing out after the second round and fading afterwards. Jones has had some challenging words for Berto but his performance last night seemed to speak volumes about where he is at this point in his career.
“I thought he started off decent,” Morgan said of Jones. “Looks like he faded quickly. He’s just not ready for that level yet. He’s a good size welterweight, like 6 foot or 6’1 but he’s just not ready for that league of fighters yet.”
Again touching on Pacquiao’s performance, I asked Morgan about the possibility of Pacquiao hooking up with undefeated Floyd Mayweather Jr. After last night’s performance people are quickly dismissing Floyd and insinuating that he is scared to face off with Pacquiao, which may or may not be true, but Morgan isn’t so quick to overlook the challenge of the Las Vegas-based superstar.
“Here’s what people don’t understand with Floyd,” he continued. “It’s the same thing with Andre Ward. They have won for so long that it’s hard to know how to lose. Those guys do not want to lose. They will do whatever it takes. If they put on a stinky show or whatever, they find a way to win. That’s what makes those guys special. That’s what Bernard Hopkins had a lot of success doing, even though a lot of people weren’t big fans of the way he was doing it.”
Cutting straight to the chase, I closed our conversation by asking Morgan if he felt that we would ever see the two men in the ring with one another.
“I don’t know. Do I think Floyd can beat him? Yeah I think Floyd can beat him. I think it will be a difficult fight. Floyd is smart. Floyd is going to hit him when he wants to hit him, tie him up when he wants to. He has good movement and he’s not going to stand there. If you look at the people who Pacquiao looks good against it’s people who stand right there. That’s genius on their part. Put your guy in there with who he looks good against. Matchmaking is a lot in this game to make your guys look good.”
Chris Robinson is based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. An archive of his work can be found here, and he can be reached at Trimond@aol.com
