Margarito may retire after Pacquiao fight, says Roach

No less than the best boxing trainer today thinks that Antonio Margarito would never be the same again in the ring . “I think he will never fight again," said Freddie Roach, who's back at his Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles to resume training Amir Khan and Julio Cesar Chavez, who are set to climb the ring one after the other in December. “I feel Margarito will never be a threat again because the punishment he took was too much for him to ever make a comeback." Roach knows whereof he speaks. Already advised by his legendary trainer, the late Eddie Futch, to hang up his gloves during as a fighter, Roach decided to fight five more times, a choice he admitted he would regret later as the blows he received on all of those bouts eventually led him to suffer Parkinson’s disease. Pacquiao punished Margarito in their 12-round title fight last week by throwing a total of 1,069 punches, 411 of them recorded as power punches. The world’s top pound-for-pound fighter won by a lopsided unanimous decision and left Margarito battered black and blue, suffering a fractured right eye socket that required surgery. As reported by AP, Margarito was finally released from the Dallas Methodist Hospital Wednesday and headed back to Los Angeles together with wife Michelle, trainer Robert Garcia, and managers Sergio Diaz and Francisco Espinosa. Roach said the 32-year-old Mexican, the biggest opponent Pacquiao ever faced, at 5-foot-11 and weighing 165 pounds on the night of the fight, could have avoided further harm had the bout been stopped. “I would have saved him," Roach said. “I would have stopped the fight after the eighth or ninth round if I were in his corner, but I was not. He has a young, inexperienced corner out there." In the same AP report, doctors said no complications and lingering effects are expected regarding Margarito’s right eye, although it would probably take several months before the Mexican known as the “Tijuana Tornado" can fight again. Diaz said that shortly after Margarito recuperates, they will decide on whether he’ll come back to the ring again. “Antonio is such a warrior. The first he asked was, ‘When can I start running?’ And we told him, he has to relax for a while." – JVP/KY, GMANews.TV