Conditioning coach: Pacman of old could have knock Margarito out

HOLLYWOOD – There was little doubt Manny Pacquiao could knock out a guy as huge and as strong as Antonio Margarito. Especially if he was in the fighting shape that he used to be. Alex Ariza, the strength and conditioning coach of the world’s top boxer pound for pound, said the Pacquiao of old who brutalized Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto could have taken down the 5-foot-11 Margarito and win by knockout instead of settling for a one-sided unanimous decision. Preparing for the Margarito fight, Pacquiao had the benefit of training for a total of only seven weeks, the early part of which was even marred by a lot of distractions that went hand in hand with the Filipino boxing superstar’s other job as congressman of the province of Sarangani. Not until Pacquiao set foot at the Wild Card gym was he finally able to concentrate on his training and the fight itself. “If you put it all together, and you make it one consistent seven-week trip and train the way we trained in the past, that fight would have been over in seven or eight rounds," Ariza disclosed. Bombarding the 32-year-old Mexican with just about every punch there is in boxing, Pacquiao had Margarito on the verge of going down several times during the action-packed bout witnessed by a crowd of 41,734. But he came short of coming up with the killer blow, and conditioning had something to do with it, in Ariza's view.. “When Manny had him hurt and wobbled, he didn’t have it right, and that’s when we really, really needed it," Ariza said. “And a lot of the commentators said they didn’t really see the spring in his legs like he had in the earlier rounds. I think that was the product of us not really focusing on the other work." Ariza likened the situation to chopping down a big tree with the benefit of a small medium. “You’re chopping down a big tree with a little ax instead of a big ax," he said. “That’s why I think sometimes when you take short cuts, there are lessons that you pay at the end. I knew Manny was gonna win, but at what cost? So I think we saw a little bit of that Saturday night." Not to take away anything from the Mexican warrior, Ariza said. In his mind, indeed Margarito was a giant in the ring. He said the 17-pound difference between the boxers when they entered the ring was a major factor in the fight, where Pacquiao was a huge 5-1 favorite. “I think there wa a big difference in the ring, that’s why Manny got a little tired. I’ve never seen Manny get tired before," he added. The experience of fighting an opponent that weighed more than a middleweight, as in the case of Margarito on fight night (at 165 lb), convinced Ariza that this would be the last time the eight-time world champion would be fighting as a super-welterweight. “I hope so. I hope it will be his last fight at 150. Manny and I talked about it today and agreed that we’re kind of done with this. I think it lost its appeal for us to keep trying to push it. When is enough enough? Till we get him hurt? At what point is enough?" said the Colombian trainer. Ariza remains convinced that if Pacquiao had been in the condition he was in his last two fights, the title match could have ended the way many wanted it to – via a knockout. “I still think if we were in the Cotto or Clottey fight shape, we could have knocked him out," he said. “For sure." - RCJ/KY, GMANews.TV