There are only 1000 tickets left for the November 14th clash between Manny Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KO’s) and WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-1, 27 KO’s) at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The 9000 lower priced seats in the arena, which sell for $150 to $500, have sold out already, leaving only the high priced ones for $750 to $1000. Those, too, will likely sell out soon due to the popularity of this fight.
Pacquiao, 30, the smaller fighter, was only two years ago fighting at 130 in the super featherweight division. On November 14th, Pacquiao will be fighting the champion Cotto at a 145 catch weight and will be attempting to win a seventh world title in seven divisions.
Pacquiao will have his work cut out for him because Cotto, 28, is probably a lot better than Pacquiao’s recent opponents Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton as far as still being in his prime. Pacquiao’s wins over Hatton and De La Hoya likely won’t have given the Filipino much preparation for what he’ll be facing against Cotto.
Indeed, the wins may in fact lull Pacquiao – and his trainer Freddie Roach – into a false sense of invincibility and could cause Pacquiao to have problems if Cotto doesn’t fold as easily as De La Hoya and Hatton did. Those fights were one-sided from the beginning and stayed that way until the end. That likely won’t be the case for the Cotto fight, because he’s used to being hit by much stronger fighters than Pacquiao.
The real question is what will Pacquiao do if Cotto doesn’t fold up like De La Hoya and Hatton did? Pacquiao had major problems against Juan Manuel Marquez in March 2008, whom he also tried to blitz early on in the fight with a strong attack. Pacquiao had problems when Marquez stayed on his feet and began to use his superior boxing skills and counter punches to get the better of Pacquiao in the fight.
As the rounds wore on, it seemed pretty clear that Pacquiao was in deep trouble and on the verge of losing the bout. The judges’, however, bailed Pacquiao out in the end, giving him a 12 round split decision despite the fact that many sports writers, as well as boxing fans in the United States and elsewhere, felt that Marquez should have won the fight.
The same thing may happen in the Cotto bout, although I’m counting on the judges getting it right this time and scoring it fairly. Cotto won’t go away easily and I can see Pacquiao having some serious problems when he sees that he has a real fight in front of him.
At that point, Roach is going to have to dig deep to try and find some of his pearls of wisdom to try and save Pacquiao from suffering a loss. As we saw last weekend, Roach’s expertise came up empty when his fighter Bernabe Conception was dominated and then ultimately disqualified in a fight against Steven Luevano.
Source: boxingnews24.com
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