Why Cotto Will Destroy Pacquiao

By Manuel Perez:

I’ve changed my mind about the November 14th fight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto. I originally saw the fight going for Pacquiao because of figured him and his trainer Freddie Roach would install some medieval catch weight that would leave Cotto too weak and drained to make a fight of it. But now that I’ve had time to look at the new variables with the catch weight only being 145 rather than say 142or 143, I think Cotto is going to wipe the deck with Pacquiao. It saddens me because we’ll be seeing Pacquiao forced to eat his humble pie but heck, it was bound to happen sooner or late. Pacquiao should have had a whole face full of defeat with his fight against Juan Manuel Marquez last year in March, but Pacquiao instead was given the win in one of the worst scored fights I’ve ever seen in my life. Just horrible scoring in that fight and no way should Pacquiao have won that bout. At any rate, I’m willing to put that fight behind me and forget about it all while I focus my attention on the Cotto-Pacquiao.

Like I was saying, Cotto is going to literally wipe the deck with the little Filipino and give him a lesson he won’t soon forget. Pacquiao would have gotten that painful lesson in his fight with Ricky Hatton in May, but the British fighter lost his fool head and went out there with some primitive caveman fighting style and got taken out. If Hatton had the brains to fight smart in the bout, he would have had the chance to hurt Pacquiao and give him a taste of real power.

I don’t think Pacquiao would have stood up for more than few rounds of Hatton’s big shots without going to pieces under the strength of his shots. But Hatton messed up and went out there like rank amateur and blew his chance. Cotto isn’t going to make that mistake you can bet on it. He’ll take his time, use his jab, right hand and high guard and coast for the first four rounds or so and let Pacquiao exhaust himself a little.

Once the fight gets past the 4th round, Cotto will start attacking Pacquiao’s body with huge hooks and give him a taste of power that he’s never seen before in his career. Pacquiao’s sparring partners and his trainer Freddie Roach won’t be able to prepare him for the torture he’s going to have to ensure at the hands of Cotto. This isn’t going to be a case of Cotto fighting a fighter his own size like Shane Mosley.

This is going to be Cotto whipping on a little fighter much smaller and weaker than him. Pacquiao will be faster, but speed is nothing when you don’t have the power like Cotto has. When Cotto discovers that Pacquiao doesn’t punch that hard, that’s when the beating is going to begin. Oscar De La Hoya said it himself that Pacquiao doesn’t hit that hard. He knows.

The only reason why De La Hoya lost was cause he was too weight drained from coming down from 154. Plus, De La Hoya was an old fighter by the time he fought Pacquiao and was essentially semi-retired at the time of the fight. Okay, so once Cotto realizes that Pacquiao has nothing in the way of power, he’s going to start torturing Pacquiao and beating him like an old rug.

This is going to be much worse than Cotto’s beating of Paulie Malignaggi in 2006 in which Cotto fractured Malignaggi’s orbital bone and beat him nearly senseless. This is going to be much worse than that. Cotto is going to make Pacquiao suffer and let him stick around so that he can toy with him for the full 12 rounds and show who the master is.

Now if Cotto is feeling generous, I think he’ll take Pacquiao out by the 7th or 8th round, but I think he’s going to let the fight linger and go the full 12 rounds so that he can toy with Pacquiao like a cat with a mouse. Afterwards, Pacquiao, badly beaten, will be cradled and mothered by Roach as he leads him out of the ring in defeat. And Cotto will be glorified with his career once again back to where it was last year before his defeat at the hands of the powerful Mexican puncher Antonio Margarito.

Source: http://www.boxingnews24.com/2009/07/why-cotto-will-destroy-pacquiao/ (July 31, 2009)