By Manuel Perez: Six division title winner Manny Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KO’s) has vowed to work hard getting in shape for his November 14th bout against World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Miguel Cotto (34-1, 27 KO’s), saying “I wish trainer harder than I ever have trained before.” Pacquiao, 30, will start his training for his Nov 14th fight against Cotto as soon as their five city press tour is competed.

The two will travel from New York to Puerto Rico, then San Francisco, California, Beverly Hills, California and San Diego. There are still a number of tickets available for the fight, some of them in the $150 to $300 range, which isn’t all that bad. However, many of them go from $500, $750 and $1000. That’s a lot for this fight. What really hurts, I think, is the pay-per-view prices for the fight.

The fight is going for $54.95, which is pretty steep in my mind. I could see it going for $20 to $30, but no more than that. I could see it going for $55 if Cotto had been looking good in the past couple of years, but he’s been struggling badly and has been beaten and was almost beaten again in his last fight.

This fight seems more of a case of Pacquiao and his team picking out a vulnerable welterweight on the slide. I know it’s interesting because Pacquiao is smaller, but with Cotto getting knocked out by Antonio Margarito only two fights ago in July 2008, and then Cotto’s bad performance against Joshua Clottey, whom he beat by a 12 round split decision in June, I don’t feel as good about throwing money away.

For that kind of money, I would expect Cotto to be unbeaten or at least not been beaten in the past few years. That’s not the case, though. Cotto was beaten only two fights ago and looked terrible against Clottey. No wonder Pacquiao is jumping out of his seat trying to get at Cotto.

I’m surprised other little fighters are calling Cotto out as well, because he looks like he’s standing at the edge of a cliff ready to fall over. Boxing fans are supposed to be excited about this fight because Pacquiao is shooting for his 7th world title in as many weight classes. I’m not. As watered down as each division is now with the four different titles available, it’s not such a big deal for a fighter to start out young like Pacquiao and win titles as they grow out of divisions.

But I don’t see Pacquiao as a modern day Henry Armstrong, because Pacquiao has never stuck around and tried to beat the other champions. He’s either stayed within his own segment of a division or moved up. Armstrong was a whole different ball game. He won 149 fights, knocked out 101 fighters and fought the best fighters in every division he was in. He didn’t fight his opponents at catch weights or any of that type of garbage. The guy was pure class as a fighter.