PACQUIAO VS COTTO IS “FIRE POWER”

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says the showdown between pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao and Puerto Rico’s WBO world welterweight champion is all about “Fire Power,” the new title to the eagerly anticipated fight at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on November 14.

Arum told www.insidesports.ph, Standard Today and Viva Sports on Thursday that the excitement was “unbelievable and everybody is talking about it being the ‘Fight of the Year’ and the demand for tickets this early is huge.”

Arum revealed that “we’ve changed the name and come up with a better name – Fire Power” which, with the letters F and P - without Arum probably realizing it - standing for the two countries the fighters represent. “F” stands for Filipinas which is the name for the Philippines in the national language of the Philippines and the letter “P” represents Puerto Rico.

Three-time “Trainer of the Year” Freddie Roach has once again made his pre-fight prediction, agreeing with Arum that “without doubt this will be a war.”

In a telephone interview with Carlos Gonzalez of Primera Hora, Roach said that Pacquiao and Cotto have “many similarities in their style but the speed of Manny will be too much for Miguel.”

Roach at the same time said he had nothing bad to say about the Puerto Rican champion stating that he believes Cotto “is an excellent athlete who is always well-prepared for his fights.” However, Roach who last week steered 22 year old Briton Amir Khan to the WBA super lightweight title over Andreas Kotelnik predicted that he had trust in the abilities of Pacquiao and predicted he would knock out Cotto.

Pacquiao is expected to report to the Wild Card Gym in the middle of September to begin training for the fight while the promotional tour will begin two days after Labor Day in the US.

Arum said “we are just going to do Los Angeles, New York and Puerto Rico and we are covering the rest of the country by satellite. It seems to us to be far too costly stopping at dozens of cities . We can do the same thing covering it by satellite with the press conferences going to be ‘live’ to all the television stations throughout the country.”

Source: insidesports.ph