By Manuel Perez: Well, it’s somewhat of a surprise to see that Freddie Roach has revised his previous knockout prediction for Manny Pacquiao over Miguel Cotto. Roach was saying that Pacquiao was going to destroy Cotto without too many problems, but now Roach is whistling a different tune after seeing video of Cotto fighting.

“I won’t think we’ll knock Cotto out. I think It’ll go the distance and we are going to win very rounds,” Roach says. What I don’t understand is the “we” part. The way that Roach makes it sound, he’s going to be out there in the ring with Pacquiao catching shots while he’s freed up to throw his punches unencumbered. Earth to Roach. You’re not going to be there, so spare me with the ‘we’ comments.

I think Pacquiao is going to wish that Roach was out there helping him before this fight is over, because I think Cotto is going to be beating the stuffing out of Pacquiao on November 14th. It’ll serve Roach right having Pacquiao get leveled and brought back down to earth, because Roach should have been watching tapes on Cotto a long time ago before blessing the fight.

Seriously, I doubt that Roach was even brought into the decision making when the Cotto-Pacquiao bout was dreamed up. Although to hear Roach talk, you’d think he was the mastermind behind it all. I think this was a Arum-Pacquiao decision completely.

I’d like to think that Roach knew enough about how good Cotto is to warn Pacquiao and Arum away from fighting Cotto, but after this admission from Roach that he’s just now sitting down to watch video tapes of Cotto, I’m not so certain.

I bet Roach is panicking now about what to do to try and prepare Pacquiao for Cotto. He knows that Pacquiao is in for a world of hurt in this fight, and that’s why Roach is having coronary trying to get Pacquiao into training camp so quickly. Roach knows that Cotto is a whole lot better than his recent opponents that Pacquiao has been feasting on lately.

I can’t blame Roach. If Pacquiao was my fighter, I’d be worried to because he’s taking a big step up in competition by facing Cotto. Roach will lose a lot of his clout when Pacquiao is beaten and he probably won’t be considered a genius like some people think he is now. I have no idea why they think Roach is a genius.

Cotto is bigger than Marquez, with better power. He’s also more popular, so if the fight is close, Cotto will have a better chance to get the win. It won’t come to that, though, because I see Cotto knocking Pacquiao out.