Antonio Margarito's Face Shows Joshua Clottey Knew What He Was Doing

I wrote an article right after Manny Pacquiao's fight against Joshua Clottey stating that Clottey's approach was the right one.

One look at Margarito's face after last Saturday's fight reinforces my statement about Clottey's strategy.

Now, from a fan's point of view, I would understand why you would think Clottey was a coward.

From a fan's point of view, Margarito should be commended as a "warrior" who never gave up, and took some vicious punishment for 11 rounds, or until Pacquiao decided enough was enough.

Margarito fought for the fans. Fought for Mexico. And now, that "warrior" spirit may have cost him his career.

And all us fans can do is pat him in the back, say, "thanks bud," and go on with our lives.

Watching the fight, two things were pretty obvious to me:

First, there was no chance Margarito could win this fight.

Second, there was no chance Manny Pacquiao would knock this guy out cold.

Pacquiao had a lot of flurries. But at no point during the fight did any one of those flurries make you think, "Uh oh, the referee might step in now."

Clottey's approach was to cover himself up until he found an opening. And if you saw Manny Pacquiao's face after that fight. You will see that he did find a few, but not the one he needed.

That may not have been "fan friendly." But it was the best conservative approach.

Same with Clottey, I truly believe Margarito's best chance to win this fight was to catch that opening for a one-punch knockout.

For someone as slow as Margarito was, the worst thing to do was to engage with Manny Pacquiao.

Pacquiao could see his punches coming from a mile away, and he would get three to five clean hits to the face before he is was able to pull his arm back.

He absorbed a ridiculous amount of punishment that by the later rounds, his own punches were no longer effective.

Had he been more conservative, he would still have had enough strength in his punch to catch Pacquiao cold had he seen an opening.

Let's be realistic though; the chances of that happening would have been very slim.

Still, if you are fighting the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, the best you could do is to give yourself a chance.

Clottey tried to look for those chances, and saw very little. He'll be hearing a lot of "boos" for his style in his FUTURE fights.

The only chance Margarito took was with his career. He heard a lot of cheers that night. But there is a chance that those were the last cheers we will ever hear.