Roach: “Cotto is Going to Be the Toughest Fight”

By Boxing News - 08/28/2009 - Comments

roach452335By Manuel Perez: In an about face, Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao’s trainer, is now talking Miguel Cotto up instead of tearing him down, saying to Nick Giongco of Fight News, “Cotto is going to be the toughest fight and anyone that says it’s going be easy is an idiot.”

Wow, Roach is really sounding different with that comment. For weeks, Roach has been dissecting Cotto and basically ripping him apart by saying he’s lost something. Roach has sounded so convincing that even I have started to buy into what he’s saying.

Thank god, I have Roach’s track record and know that he’s not exactly infallible when making his predictions. Anyway, I think Roach was crazy for pointing out Cotto’s liabilities before the fight because boxing fans didn’t need Roach to point out that Cotto hasn’t looked like the same fighter since his 11th round TKO loss to Antonio Margarito last year.

By pointing out how vulnerable Cotto is, it basically made Pacquiao, Roach and his promoter look like a cherry picker in essence for choosing such a flawed opponent like this in the first place to fight. If you’re trying to fool the public about a flawed opponent, the last thing you want to do is tell the truth and turn them off to the fight altogether.

It’s already hard for some of them to see Cotto as having much of a chance because of his beat down at the hands of Margarito, but by pointing out the obvious – how different Cotto looks now since the loss – it makes the whole fight seem not even worth it. I think the fact that Cotto has looked so flawed is the reason why he was ultimately chosen by Pacquiao’s team.

I’m not just putting it on the team, though. I think Pacquiao probably saw how bad Cotto looked against Joshua Clottey and Margarito, and probably saw an easy opportunity to win another title.

But as bad as Cotto looked in both of those fights, I think Cotto still is going to wipe the deck with Pacquiao. You see, even if Cotto is only at 85% of what he was before the loss to Margarito, it’s still plenty enough to be the likes of Pacquiao.

The little Filipino fighter is too small and fragile to go toe to toe with a big puncher like Cotto. Plus, Cotto has a lot of heart and has proven it in battles against Shane Mosley, Margarito, Zab Judah and Clottey. Pacquiao hasn’t had to struggle except in his loss to Erik Morales and his two fights against Juan Manuel Marquez, which I saw Pacquiao losing both of them.

As far as Roach goes, he needs to make this fight seem more like a fight that has some suspense where Cotto as seen as having a chance, otherwise Roach is going to scare away a lot of would be fans. I don’t need him to say anything good about Cotto for my sake, cause I know Cotto is going to win anyway.

But in case Roach hasn’t noticed, almost the entire world is predicting that Pacquiao is going to beat Cotto on November 14th, and Roach isn’t helping by predicting dire circumstances for Cotto.



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