Cotto vs. Pacquiao: Manny Will be fighting a war with a popgun

By Manuel Perez: It’s always interesting to me to see a fighter that has gone soft from having faced mediocre opposition. They get this smug look on their face as if they’re invincible and walk around like their royalty or something. And it’s especially fun to watch them finally get put in with a good opponent and end up getting drilled, beaten up and taken out in a brutal fashion.

And that’s why I see Manny Pacquiao getting the living daylights beaten out of him on November 14th by WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto in their fight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas. What we have here is a good old fashioned case of overreach on the part of Pacquiao. He’s faced an old, weight drained and badly shot Oscar De La Hoya and beaten him, and then Pacquiao has beaten Ricky Hatton, who looked as played out as an old dried up oil well at the time that Pacquiao fought him.

The wins, great money makers both of them for Pacquiao, give the impression that Pacquiao is nearly unbeatable. Yes, unbeatable alright, unbeatable against fighters that don’t have what it takes anymore. Okay, so Pacquiao is facing Cotto instead of a shot fighter.

Now we get to see Pacquiao in with a fighter that is still at the top of his game and not shot. Well, Cotto is a little diminished from his beating at the hands of the tough Mexican Antonio Margarito last year, but he’s still fighting at around 80% of what he was in the past. That should be enough for Cotto to easily get by Pacquiao. What we have here is a case of fools gold, with Pacquiao looking better than he actually is because of his wins over Hatton and De La Hoya.

Boxing fans needlessly are gushing over Pacquiao right now, praising how fast he is and this and that. He’s fast but he’s no power at welterweight. Pacquiao is only strong at the smaller weights. De La Hoya said himself that Pacquiao doesn’t punch hard. I have to believe an old champion like De La Hoya. He’s a great warrior and he’s telling it like it is. Pacquiao is fast, De La Hoya says, but he doesn’t hit hard.

So all Cotto has to worry about is landing his own big shots and don’t waste time worrying about getting hit by Pacquiao. He’s not the knockout threat that all these people are proclaiming him to be and fans will see that next month when he gets handled. Cotto is going to take Pacquiao to the wood shed and give him a terrible beating.

Pacquiao is going to be physical wreck by the time Cotto’s gets through with him. You ever seen someone that was in a bad car wreck? You know, with the bloody face, sideways nose, lips all busted up and teeth littering the car. This is how I see Pacquiao ending up by the time that Cotto gets through with him next month. Oh, it will be sad to see Pacquiao beaten so badly, but it will be good for boxing. I think it will make smaller fighters like Pacquiao think twice before moving up in weight.

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Cotto-Pacquiao with perspective

By Sam Singh: There’s no doubt Filipino sensation Manny Pacquiao is a great fighter, but he is being seriously overrated from his wins over Oscar De La Hoya & Ricky Hatton. Somehow, I don’t think Stevie Forbes would’ve been as hyped up as Pacquiao if he had beaten De La Hoya in their fight.

Even though I expected Oscar to KO Manny, you can’t ignore the fact that the last time Oscar fought at 147lbs was in 2001 against the late Arturo Gatti. Making the weight at the end of his career clearly diminished him and I had no idea that he would enter the ring at a dead weight.

The same goes for the win over Hatton. I give Pacquiao credit for the win but I always saw Hatton there for the taking. Apart from beating a faded Tszyu who never fought again, Hatton had a major scare at 147lbs & was on the verge of being taken out by a feather-fisted fighter in Collazo. Likewise, Mayweather who isn’t a noted puncher, also knocked Hatton out – badly. Not to mention the fact that Juan Lazcano had Ricky Hatton hurt.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Pacquiao is a great boxer and I rate him highly. But he’s there to be out-boxed and I feel Juan Manuel out-boxed him in both of their fights.

Cotto, on the other hand, is a guy who has been in with the top 147 pounders in Mosley, Margarito, Clottey, Quintana & Judah. And none of those guys were able to really hurt Cotto. With the exception of confirmed-cheater Margarito, Cotto was able to beat much bigger, stronger guys.

Look at the Mosley fight. Shane Mosley is a bigger and stronger version of Manny Pacquiao. The only difference is that Pacquiao is a southpaw who can box more on his feet. But Mosley was still unable to hurt Cotto. So I can’t see why so many feel Pacquiao will stop or KO Cotto.

Sure, Cotto looked vulnerable in his last fight but he had a very serious cut for 9 rounds. And it was against Clottey, a guy who would do very well against the likes of Mosley, Berto and Williams. In fact, Bob Arum recently said that people don’t actually realize how good Joshua Clottey is.

But at the end of the day I guess people like to talk. They say Cotto is damaged goods. They say the tattoos are a sign of mental weakness. They say the Margarito fight destroyed him. I say this: Cotto is not damaged goods. The tattoos are a sign of weakness? Cotto had his body covered in tattoos well before his recent ones. And as for Margarito, I think it’s Hands of Plaster who will never be the same again! Margarito looked shot against Mosley and took another series of hard shots. I think all of those shots from Cotto have actually caught up Margarito.

So if Cotto does beat Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto seals his greatness by beating the pound-for-pound number one who is in his prime. And for me, Cotto has a great chance. Cotto is too big, too strong, and most importantly, very smart.

So the question is this: will Manny Pacquiao be able to absorb Miguel Cotto’s lethal left-hooks to the body and head? Hall-of-fame trainer Emanuel Steward reckons Cotto has one of the best left-hooks in the history of boxing. And Arum recently said that this will be the story of the fight as to whether or not Pacquiao can take Cotto’s signature left-hook to body and head.

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Pacquiao knocks down a sparring partner, but then gets plastered

By Manuel Perez: It looks as if World Boxing Organization welterweight contender Manny Pacquiao has knocked down another one of his sparring partners, this one Shawn Porter, according to abs-cbn NEWS. But before you get all excited about it, Porter got up and tagged Pacquiao with a huge hook to the head, says trainer Freddie Roach. “Yes, Shawn [Porter] went down twice but he came back very well and caught Manny with a good hook. He came back very well,” Roach said.

That’s not good news that a sparring partner, who has only a pitiful 10 fights under his belt is able to take Pacquiao’s shots, get up off the deck and belt the Filipino with a hard hook to the head. That tells me that Pacquiao lacks finishing power at welterweight, and even if he can knock Cotto down, which I don’t see happening, Cotto will get up and ruin his world by hurting Pacquiao in return.

I think Pacquiao can dish it out but he can’t take it. That’s the thing. You got to be able to take a punch when you’re facing a slugger like Cotto. It doesn’t matter if Pacquiao lands a ton of shots and looks good for a round or two, if he can’t take Cotto’s power. This isn’t Ricky Hatton or Oscar De La Hoya that Pacquiao is fighting. He’s fighting a fighter who is still in his prime, not an easy mark made to order for Pacquiao.

That’s where Pacquiao is going to fall apart. He’s so used to fighting scrubs and fighters that are over the hill, he’s going to be in shock next month on November 14th. And I frankly don’t care if he keeps beating up his over-matched, under qualified sparring partners until he’s blue in the face, he’s still going to get stretched by Cotto next month.

Beating up Porter or Jose Luis Castillo doesn’t equate to beating a top tier fighter like Cotto. Does anyone think that Castillo or Porter are top tier fighters at this point? They are sparring partners and would be mowed down just as easy by Cotto if they were sparring with him.

Roach seems to think that Pacquiao is ready for Cotto, saying “It only means that he’s ready for the fight and that he’s doing very well,” Roach told The Philippine Star’s Abac Cordero. I kind of doubt it. This looks like Roach isn’t mentally acknowledging who Pacquiao is sparring with. Sure, he’s beating up on his sparring partners a little bit, but one of them is regularly giving Pacquiao problems.

Rumor has it, that Porter dropped Pacquiao last week in sparring. Roach said that it’s not true, but I wonder. Could it be that Roach is trying to keep information from leaking out about that? I know if I was the trainer I wouldn’t want Cotto to fight out that Pacquiao is getting dropped left and right like a bad habit by Porter. It wouldn’t look good and it would make Cotto train even harder.

But let’s pretend that Pacquiao is battering Porter around the ring. So what? He’s beating up on a sparring partner. Cotto is going to beat the stuffing out of Pacquiao and show that he’s no sparring partner. If they wanted to have Pacquiao spar with a fighter with power and skills that are similar to Cotto, Roach should have had Alfredo Angulo come spar with Pacquiao during the camp. That would be hilarious. Roach would probably need a stretcher on hand to pick Pacquiao up off the canvas for every sparring session that takes place with Angulo.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall for sparring sessions like that. Pacquiao would come forward and Angulo would quickly knock him down. Pacquiao gets up and is immediately knocked down again. The stretcher would then be brought in to take Pacquiao out of the ring. At that point, Roach would likely give Angulo the bad news by telling him that he can’t spar with Pacquiao anymore.

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WATCH SUPER SIX LIVE STREAMING

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One of the many charms of the Super Six World Boxing Classic is that no matter how you match the six tournament entrants, you end up with a fascinating and potentially exciting bout. Evidence of that are the two fights that will kick things off on Saturday, Oct. 17. Two former middleweight champs square off in Berlin, Germany, when American Jermain Taylor travels across the pond to take on Germany's Arthur Abraham. Then, in Nottinghham, England, hometown hero Carl Froch defends his WBC title against young American Andre Dirrell. Read More

The 29-year-old Abraham provides Taylor with some difficult challenges. Abraham's defense has been almost impossible to penetrate and when he is hit, Abraham has shown an iron chin and amazing resiliency. Edison Miranda broke Abraham's jaw in the early rounds of a 2006 match, but Abraham fought the full 12 rounds to win a decision. Then there is Abraham's power. His record of 30-0 with 24 knockouts includes stoppages against seven of his last eight opponents.

If there is an Achilles heel for Abraham, it might be his difficulty in dealing with good all-around boxers... Enter Jermain Taylor. With superb skills this 31-year-old is the consummate boxer-puncher. With two wins over ring legend Bernard Hopkins and four defenses of his middleweight title, Taylor has strong credentials, but recent events have cast him in the underdog role for this tournament. He has lost three of his last four fights, but all three were within his grasp. On April 25 he and another Super Six contestant, Carl Froch, engaged in one of the best fights of the year. Taylor put Froch down in the second and boxed superbly for most of the first 9 rounds, then, characteristically started to tire. Froch rallied and put Taylor down in the 12th, but even with that, had Taylor stayed on his feet he would have won the fight. Instead, with just seconds left on the clock, Froch stopped him--a heartbreaking loss for Jermain.

There are a number of intangibles that provide intrigue in this match. One is the fact that both of these men have had most of their fights at 160 pounds. Taylor is 1-1-1 as a 168 pounder. All three have been good efforts, a close decision loss to Kelly Pavlik, a win over Jeff Lacy and the Froch fight that barely eluded him. Abraham is 1-0, a TKO win over Miranda in their rematch.

The styles of these two fighters sets up what could be a dramatic ebb and flow to the fight. Abraham is often a slow starter who stays in his shell-like defense for a number of rounds and often loses those rounds. Those are the rounds that Taylor often wins in fights--when he is fresh. Then in the middle rounds Abraham starts to come out of his cocoon and land big power shots. Those are the rounds in which traditionally Taylor has suffered from stamina problems. Can Abraham deal with the boxing skill set of Taylor? And can Taylor avoid tiring as the fight wears on, and avoid he power punches of Abraham? The answers will come on Oct. 17.

On the same night over in the U.K., you can expect a ravenous crowd of Carl Froch supporters to fill every seat in the Nottingham arena for his bout against Andre Dirrell. Carl will be defending his title for the first time at home, after making his first defense in America against Taylor. The 32 year old Brit has used his unorthodox style, granite chin and power punching to fashion a 25-0 record, 20 of those coming by knockout. His comeback win over Taylor won him a legion of new fans at home and around the world.

Into this charged atmosphere comes 27-year-old American Andre Dirrell. This former Olympian might be the most gifted athlete in the Super Six tournament, and he too is undefeated at 18-0. He has speed in both hands and feet and can throw dazzling combinations. Dirrell, however, is untested against this level of opposition.

The match-up offers some good plotlines. For Carl Froch, defense is an afterthought at best and Dirrell is a quick puncher. But Dirrell can have lapses in concentration during fights and Froch tends to seize on those opportunities.

On Oct. 17, four fighters head into uncharted territory in a tournament format that has never before been seen in boxing. This doubleheader will provide us with some early clues on who will be a force to be reckoned with in the Super Six World Boxing Classic. I'll see you there!

~Al Bernstein

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