Around the Net: Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito Pre-Fight Edition

Check out our round by round coverage of the show: Fight Night Coverage - Manny Pacquiao vs Antonio Margarito

Heavily hyped and much maligned, the junior-middleweight (or maybe semi-super-welterweight would be a more appropriate title) showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito is upon us.  Whether we like the fight or not, the potential is there for a decent scrap and we're all probably at least a little bit interested in how this one plays out tomorrow night.

The Boxing Bulletin will have a preview later on today, but for now we'll just take a quick look around the net at some of the various opinions on the Cowboys Stadium encounter...

Bad Left Hook Fight Preview: Manny Pacquiao v. Antonio Margarito

Say what you will about how you're four-square against it, but this fight is huge on the overall boxing landscape. What happens in this fight determines where the next big event comes from, and who's in it. If Pacquiao wins, of course the Pacquiao-Mayweather (or is it Mayweather-Pacquiao this week?) talk begins again. But if Margarito wins, a whole lot of things open up. There'd be talk of a rematch. There'd be talk of a rematch with Mosley, or talk of a rematch with Cotto. (Cotto, by the way, seems the most likely next opponent for whomever wins this fight, or at least that's my instinct.) And it would be the biggest win of Margarito's career. A Pacquiao victory is not earth-shattering, or even unexpected, but a loss could mean any number of things for him. He has said this week that despite the usual chatter, this will not be his last fight. But I think we can guess that right now, he's prepared to leave victorious.

But all the future aside, this is a huge event and has an outside chance of being the biggest fight of 2010, though I suspect it's unlikely to beat Mayweather-Mosley on pay-per-view sales.

The Cruelest Sport - Easy Pickings: Manny Pacquiao & The Myth of Soft Competition

Moral qualms about his upcoming bout with Antonio Margarito have also kicked up a cloud of dust around Pacquiao recently. But the latest narrative being woven around Pacquiao, who turned pro at 106 pounds, is that he has been handpicking safe opponents, with the latest example of that being Margarito. What is most remarkable about this pseudo-theory is that there are fighters out there who actually do handpick opponents and who embody the nastiest aspects of mismatches. This trend can easily be found on television, where opponents do their best "Night of the Living Dead" imitations for the benefit of no one but the flesh peddlers who promote their dooms. They enter the ring still wrapped in burial shrouds, knock-kneed, ready to bleed, pale from the lack of light in the mausoleums, sepulchers, and catacombs from which they were exhumed.

Safe Side of the Ropes - Power Play: Pacquiao vs Margarito Preview & Prediction

Manny Pacquiao returns to Dallas this weekend to do battle with the biggest skuldugger since J.R. Ewing. Boxing’s one man franchise tackles the disgraced former welterweight star Antonio Margarito in an intriguing bout, one not without an element of danger for the Filipino superman.

The build up has been marked by controversy and spin. After being banished to the margins for attempting to fight with hardened hand wraps against Shane Mosley, Margarito’s selection as substitute for the reluctant Floyd Mayweather kicked up a furore. There have been reports filtering out of the respective training camps painting Margarito as a reborn killer and Pacquiao a lax champion concerned more with his multi-purpose ambassadorial role than the task at hand. Cynics have countered such utterences, labelling them mere promotional gimmicks to help even the odds up in a fight which opened with an overwhelming favourite in Pacquiao.

The Queensbury Rules - Manny Pacquiao Vs. Antonio Margarito: To Boycott Or Not To Boycott

Upon months of contemplating whether to purchase Pacquiao-Margarito, I decided that, as powerful as the statements of those other writers were, that I would purchase and cover the fight. This site is not a news outlet, exactly, but some readers are interested in the fight and others are not. I weighed my personal beliefs and my obligation to readers of this site and decided to err on the side of my obligation to readers of this site. It is a noteworthy event when the biggest fighter in the world is in the ring. It is a big story when he fights the most disgraced fighter in the world. I'm not saying the other writers have no regard for their readers -- they do. But they won't be covering this fight live for them, and I've decided I should.

The Boxing Tribune - Pacquiao-Margarito Allows Fans Rare Veto Opportunity

If Arum can sell a 6 to 1 fight between one fighter who shouldn’t be fighting against one who should be doing something better for a belt they will never likely defend in a division they don’t belong in, it will be a testament to the old man’s abilities as a promoter. Consider this the Mona Lisa of preying on customer gullibility; A masterpiece in cynical matchmaking.

But this takes us back to the very beginning.

What can the fans do in the face of three powerful entities, hell bent on lining their pockets at the expense of the sport?

The simple answer is to simply not buy the product.

Every purchase of Margarito vs. Pacquiao is a vote for the status quo in boxing– A vote for the unethical way the sport is run and a show of support for those cynically underestimating the intelligence and resolve of the boxing fan base.

Boxing Scene - For Manny Pacquiao, Eight is (More Than) Enough

This Saturday, against former Welterweight titlist Antonio Margarito (38-6, 27 KO), Pacquiao will go for a belt in an eighth division.

Outside of some shameless television advertising doing what it is supposed to do, it’s hard to find much excitement about this potentially looming accomplishment.

Good.

Given where Pacquiao has come from on the scale, and all that Margarito got done in the 2000’s at Welterweight (regardless of the Shane Mosley wrap controversy), defeating Margarito could be impressive on its own. The belt on the line is anything but.

NY Daily News - Antonio Margarito is an appropriate villain to Manny Pacquiao's hero in fight at Cowboys Stadium

Margarito, who was labeled "Marga-cheato" by his critics, spent much of the time on the HBO boxing reality series "2-4/7" trying to rehab his damaged image. In the opening episode, Pacquiao said he didn't believe Margarito's story and did an overly exaggerated impression of Margarito with his hands outstretched and looking away while pretending to get his hands wrapped. On the same program, Margarito and Garcia made light of the controversy by putting a brick on top of Margarito's hands and attempting to wrap it with gauze.

It seems that Margarito has done a good job of convincing his fans of his innocence. He was heartily cheered by those who attended an open workout on Tuesday and he was embraced by them when he went to sign autographs afterward.

Still, Margarito will never be able to rehab his image to boxing purists. He paints himself as a hapless victim, but he has been fitted with the role of villain for the fight against Pacquiao. He wears it well and he will be paid handsomely ($3 million) for

USATODAY.com - Margarito apologizes for mocking Roach's Parkinson's disease

Roach, who angrily said Wednesday that he would never talk to Margarito or his trainer, Robert Garcia, ever again, softened his stance Thursday.

"They made a mistake," he said. "They didn't understand that this disease affects a lot of people. I'm kind of soft. So I accepted their apologies.

"They picked the wrong subject. It's not just me they attacked but the whole world of those who have the disease. I just want to get past it and get on with the fight."

ESPN - Manny Pacquiao transcends boxing

Unlike many top-flight championship fights, which get little mainstream media coverage, Pacquiao's fights bring media from around the world. Papers that don't cover boxing cover Pacquiao. General-interest publications and television programs cover him. When he fights, it's not just a fight. It's a world event.

Arum said when he began promoting Pacquiao he thought he could make him a star, but within boxing.

"I made a speech in the Philippines when I signed him that I would make him a crossover star," Arum said. "But I was thinking in terms of the usual boxing milieus. Not in terms of being a worldwide celebrity. But that's what he has become. It's a whole combination of things that appeal to people -- his story, up from poverty, coming up the way he did, fighting for a dollar and two dollars. Suddenly coming over to the United States and becoming better and better. Running for Congress while he was still a fighter. Now I am absolutely convinced that he can be president of the Philippines someday."