We’ll beat Cotto – Roach

Freddie Roach is about to do his homework way before deadline time.

Now that it’s been announced that Manny Pacquiao is facing Miguel Cotto on November 14 — about four months from today and several weeks from his target start of training camp — Roach is beginning to put up the blueprint of Cotto’s ultimate destruction.

“I’ll be watching tapes of Cotto’s last two fights (against British Michael Jennings and Ghanaian Joshua Clottey) and also that of Shane Mosley,” Roach told the Bulletin on Wednesday from the Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.

Cotto knocked out Jennings in five rounds last February and narrowly beat Clottey in his last fight last June in New York but the one fight that Roach wants to dissect is that of the Puerto Rican against Mosley that took place in Nov. 2007 in a bout Cotto won by unanimous but close decision.

Interestingly, Roach said he won’t pay much attention to Cotto’s knockout loss to Mexican Antonio Margarito owing to the controversy that surrounded the loaded gloves that Margarito used in pummeling Cotto to submission in July last year.

Roach acknowledges the fact that Cotto is big and strong and this is the reason why he wants another eight-week training camp beginning in mid-September just in time after the conclusion of a three-city press tour that Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum is staging beginning Sept. 9.

Despite Cotto’s strong presence, Roach is more than confident Pacquiao will get the job done.

“I have no concerns…we’ll beat him,” said the 49-year-old Roach, who has been calling the shots in the Filipino’s corner since mid-2001. Roach told the Puerto Rican press yesterday that “Pacquiao’s speed will be too much for Cotto.”

Meanwhile, Pacquiao left for Los Angeles on Tuesday night to fetch his wife Jinkee and kids and he might not even stay there for a day.

“Manny will be back tomorrow (today),” said Pacquiao’s adviser Wakee Salud, laughing, amused over Pacquiao’s latest antic. Pacquiao was accompanied by his Canadian adviser Mike Koncz.

“Manny won’t even leave the (LAX) airport because a few hours upon his arrival, he will be on the plane bound for Manila,” Salud added.

Source: mb.com.ph