BY Manuel Perez: I’m kind of feeling sorry for Manny Pacquiao right now. I know that’s hard for people to understand because they see Pacquiao as one of the best fighters in all of boxing. Granted, Pacquiao has achieved some things by beating Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya recently. Pacquiao is now seen in lofty terms as a fighter that is greater than his actual ability. That’s the problem.

On November 14th, Pacquiao is going to enter the ring against World Boxing Association welterweight champion Miguel Cotto and take a terrible beating, one that will end with Pacquiao lying on the canvas in a pool of blood. It’s then at this point where Pacquiao’s status as the pound-for-pound number #1 fighter will be ripped apart as reality sets in and people start coming to me and telling me how right I was about Pacquiao.

Let’s look at the facts. Pacquiao struggled with Juan Manuel Marquez, going life and death with him on two separate occasions, fighting to a draw on one and winning the other under questionable circumstances. Beyond that, the main fights for Pacquiao in his career have come against Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, David Diaz, Hatton, and De La Hoya.

Pacquiao won the first fight with Morales by a 12 round decision. This was when Morales was at his best. In the two rematches, Morales suffered from weight problems and came into both fights badly weight drained and weakened. I don’t those two fights because Morales clearly wasn’t the same fighter.

Barrera wasn’t the same fighter by the time that he fought Pacquiao, so I can’t count that fight either. Diaz is a decent fighter but not in the class of prime Barrera, Morales and De La Hoya, so I don’t that fight. De La Hoya, of course was shot and weight drained by the time that he fought Pacquiao, so I don’t count that fight.

Hatton was messed up from his seesaw battle with weight for the past couple of years prior to his fight with Pacquiao. By the time that Hatton fought Pacquiao, Hatton had already started to show huge cracks in his ability, losing by 10th round knockout to Floyd Mayweather Jr. and getting badly hurt by fringe contender Juan Lazcano in the bout after the Mayweather bout.

So, I can’t count the Hatton fight as being a meaningful victory for Pacquiao. Out of all Pacquiao’s fights, only his fights with Marquez really count, but I, and along with many other people, saw Pacquiao as losing both fights. Out of both fights with Marquez, I had Marquez winning 18 of 24 rounds. I give Pacquiao a lot of credit because he still appeared to win six rounds against Marquez, but that’s all he could do.

Okay, so Pacquiao is going to go out on November 14th and he’s going to get whipped in a major way by Cotto and all those people who saw greatness in Pacquiao are going to need to reevaluate their assumptions. The thing of it is, it was there to be seen if they had just painstakingly poured through Pacquiao’s resume, did some labor intensive research like I did for this article, and found out that Pacquiao’s resume is pretty empty and without much worth.