By Manuel Perez: After watching how poorly Miguel Cotto has looked in his last three fights, does anyone honestly believe that he has a chance at beating Manny Pacquiao in their November 14th tentatively scheduled bout? I think Cotto is a swell character, a true hero for some boxing fans that like drama in their fights, but he’s lacking in too many departments for me to give him much of a chance at beating the likes of Pacquiao.

If this was a fight against Zab Judah, Michael Jennings or one of the other beatable opponents that Cotto has been put in with in the past few years I would give him an excellent chance at beating any of them. However, he’s not facing soft opponent next time out. He’s facing one of the faster fighters in the business. Cotto is the best in the WBO, but that’s about it.

I wouldn’t like his chances against Andre Berto, Paul Williams, Shane Mosley, Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and especially Antonio Margarito. Honestly, it shouldn’t even be Cotto vs. Pacquiao next if you want my two cents.

The fighters that should be in the ring with Pacquiao are Williams, Berto or Mosley. Even Mayweather Jr. doesn’t rate a fight with Pacquiao. If a fighter has been out for two years and has slipped from the rankings, they should at least have to fight a few top ranked fighters to get position for a big money fight like this.

Mayweather has done jack since beating Ricky Hatton two years ago, and has done little before that as well in the two years prior to the Hatton fight. But at any rate let’s get back to Cotto. He looked absolutely horrible against Clottey last Saturday night, running all around the ring and looking afraid of Clottey.

There’s no way I could reward that pathetic performance by giving him a victory, and believe me, there was nothing heroic about Cotto fighting with a simple cut over his left eye. The brave stuff comes when a fighter stands his ground and fights it out and not runs around the ring like a chicken with his head cut off.

Cotto should have lost that fight. At best, Cotto might have done enough to get a draw but nothing more than that. There was nothing that Cotto showed in that fight that told me that he is anywhere close to being good enough to be Pacquiao.

And not saying that Pacquiao is a great fighter because he’s limited because of his inability to beat Juan Manuel Marquez, who should have two wins over Pacquiao. But Pacquiao is definitely good enough beat Cotto. Margarito had Cotto looking like a track star a year ago.

In that fight, Cotto ran until his feet wore out on him and then he got out the easy way by taking a couple of knees to escape his beating. He didn’t go out on his shield like Margarito did in his loss against Mosley. In a sense, he quit basically.

You know saying, once a quitter always a quitter. Well, I think when the going gets tough against Pacquiao, we’ll see Cotto taking the chance to take a knee or two and get out while he can to save his backside.