24/7 Pacquiao/Margarito – Episode 2
Antonio Margarito’s trainer Robert Garcia was a fighter who retired at 26. He didn’t have it in him to hurt other guys. Or maybe he wasn’t that good. I’ll have to look him up.
He seems to be interested in the trainer game and says when his guy wins, he wants to hear that it’s because of his trainer.
Manny threw an impromptu wedding party for his advisor, and guess who took care of the music? Yep, Manny on the mic.
Roach thinks that Pacquiao’s speed isn’t there and he brought in Amir Khan to spar with Manny. Khan is lighting fast. Roach says the training camp overall has been up and down.
Garcia and Margarito watch Pacquiao’s last fight with Josh Clottey and notice how Clottey doesn’t throw punches. Yep, we all noticed that. Garcia thinks that there’s no way to Pac can match Margarito’s strength and thinks that it’s key to not get impatient or not be ready to throw punches.
Oh man. Team Margarito decided to joke about the hardened hand wraps. They jokingly put a stone slab over his hands and Garcia wrapped his hands. Well, now the California State Athletic Commission just added infinity to his suspension. Margarito also called Pac a “puto”. He’s going heel. Well, then again, he had to go heel.
Holy shit. One of Pac’s trainers just made the same comparison to Rocky III that I did in the last report. Roach says it’s the worst training camp. There was an interesting discussion where they asked Pac where he was going on Friday, and this was just after he landed at Wild Card. He played dumb for a bit but then remembered he had to be in Vegas for Bob Arum, which they saw as a distraction.
Thoughts:
I think this is exactly where the story has to go. It’s a really easy one this time. Margarito went heel completely with the joke about the hand wraps and calling Pac a disparaging name. And thus far, they are showing Pac as uncaring and not dedicated to his craft, which makes you immediately think an upset is coming. And that’s really how you have to sell this fight. A cheater is trying to take the champ’s belt and the champ needs to get back to being the best in order to not let it happen. Brilliant stuff.
