Arlington in November

Cowboys Stadium is not in Dallas or anywhere near Grapevine, Tex., home of the Gaylord Texan – official hotel of the Dallas Cowboys. The stadium is in Arlington, a half hour west of Dallas and a half hour south of Grapevine and one parking lot from Rangers Ballpark. Let’s pause for a moment to celebrate stadiums named after teams that play in them and not corporations that don’t.

There. That’s the end of homage to the House that Jerry Built. Manny Pacquiao’s last prizefight was about seeing him in Cowboys Stadium. That trick won’t work twice.

Pacquiao hasn’t changed. He’s perhaps more of an icon in the Philippines for having won a congressional election since his March fight with Joshua Clottey, but saying Pacquiao is more of an icon in the Philippines is like calling him “perfecter.” Which means that for Pacquiao’s fight on Nov. 13 to succeed, Tijuana’s Antonio Margarito is going to have to draw better than Ghana’s Clottey did. Piece of cake – preferably tres leches – right?

Not so fast. If Spanish-language emails coming to bbarry@15rounds.com can be believed, not all of Mexico is buying the Margarito line. They have not forgiven or forgotten. And they are right not to.

If you are reading this, you have considered and reconsidered the Margarito case. I don’t plan to persuade you of his innocence or guilt; I’m too conflicted about it, myself, to do a creditable job. But I will be in Cowboys Stadium next month and wonder if watching someone wrestle with his own ambivalence mightn’t prove cathartic to you.

I worry about the precedent Margarito will set in November: Break the rules (wittingly or otherwise), receive banishment, go into exile, miss a fight, take a tune-up match, shop for a sympathetic commission, enjoy your richest payday. It’s obviously unfair, but adults don’t whine about unfairness.

It is troublesome too, though, because this precedent begs for a copycat effort. Why shouldn’t some other fighter, or his trainer, try it?

Still, Margarito will not fight in November with any foreign substances smeared across his hand wraps because Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach will be an incredible pain in the ass during the hand-wrapping that HBO’s cameras will cover like it’s part of the undercard. But here’s something to consider.

If we take Margarito at his word – that he was oblivious of his trainer’s transgressions – we’re left to determine when Margarito’s trainer began tampering with wraps. Margarito cannot help us answer that question because he recused himself from the case by expressing complete ignorance of his trainer’s comportment, numerous times before the California State Athletic Commission.

In other words, was Margarito ever honestly better than the 10-3 journeyman he began his career as?

Well, if the answer is no, we’re in for a bloodletting to make Pacquiao’s unraveling of Ricky Hatton look civilized.

Boxing is a theater that requires suspension of disbelief much as any other. Let us suspend our disbelief, then, and imagine Margarito’s hands were coddled in the softest of gauze and tape the evening he beat Miguel Cotto in 2008 and th’t that same Margarito will be in Arlington four Saturdays from now.

Manny Pacquiao is far too quick for Margarito to find early. Margarito will lope forward, hands low and wide, smiling as Pacquiao hits him 50 times every round. Pacquiao will have spent weeks sparring before Freddie Roach, who probably will have stopped the action each time Pacquiao’s back touches the ropes. Pacquiao, in other words, should come off those ropes like they were an electric fence. And Margarito is none too effective in the center of the ring.

Why not? Because Margarito has a signature crossover move that requires space and time. It goes like this. He puts his jab out to start the combo in motion. He brings his right foot forward with his right cross, which is a loopy, corralling punch thrown to trigger the left uppercut/hook hybrid. Then from a southpaw stance, he pulls on his right shoulder and launches his left fist upwards, with all his being behind it.

But Pacquiao is three things that foil this crossover: Small, quick and southpaw. He will be able to parry the looping cross and move away from it by pivoting quickly on his lead right foot in a tight circle that makes Margarito’s hybrid punch wider than usual. Margarito will hit mostly air, turn leftwards and taste a left cross or four. And he’ll be down 60-54 on all three judges’ cards when the seventh round commences.

But he will not be discouraged.

He will be the largest man Pacquiao has faced. He will be a man who fights with a special kind of resentment. He will be outclassed but not outwilled. And he will weigh more than Joshua Clottey did in March – when the Ghanaian proved that if a welterweight is hell-bent on not getting hurt by Pacquiao he needn’t be.

Margarito has a chance because of physics. Pacquiao’s power above 147 pounds is unproved. Boxing history is rife with great fighters who went one weight class too high. Margarito’s relentlessness would not be enough if he were Pacquiao’s size. But he is not. He is much bigger.

One of two things is likely to happen in November. Margarito never finds Pacquiao, chasing him in hopeless circles round the center of the ring and collecting the 36-minute beating so many Americans, and Mexicans too, believe he deserves. Or Margarito finds Pacquiao late in the fight and makes it a dramatic spectacle indeed.

So I ask myself, would I go to this match if it were in Las Vegas and not my home state of Texas? I think so, but I’m not sure. Would I buy it on pay-per-view, otherwise? Yes. Should you come see this match in Texas? Yes. Should you buy it on pay-per-view, otherwise? I think so, but I’m not sure.

Bart Barry can be reached at bbarry@15rounds.com