By Manuel Perez: At yesterday’s press conference at Monday’s press conference at the Beverly Hills hotel, Freddie Roach, the trainer of Manny Pacquiao, had his usual standard pearls of wisdom for the reporters, remarking “I think this is going to be a 12-round fight. No knockout. This guy [Miguel Cotto] is very resilient. If a knockout comes, it comes, but if you go out there looking for a knockout, you might get caught yourself. We have to be very tactical.” In other words, Pacquiao needs to try and protect his noggin from getting tagged by Cotto on November 14th.

I see this as a bunch of phony lip service by Roach, because I expect him to have Pacquiao geared to use the same strategy that he used in his fight with Ricky Hatton in May 2009. Pacquiao’s whole game is right hook, straight left hand, get in and get out. There’s not much else to Pacquiao. That’s why it’s hilarious when Roach starts explaining his fight strategy for Cotto.

Roach scrunches up his face like mad doctor and starts explaining things as if there really is going to be something new and world shattering that Pacquiao will be doing for the Cotto fight. It’s so pretentious. I hope Roach isn’t kidding himself thinking that Pacquiao is actually going to be doing something different than what he already has been doing in the past four years.

Pacquiao will do what he always has done since Roach taught him how to use his right hand and throw a right hook. Aside from that one little tool that Pacquiao has learned under Roach, he is essentially the same fighter he was before Roach got his mitts on Pacquiao, as far as I can tell. The only difference between the pre-Roach version of Pacquiao and the present-Roach, is that Pacquiao can throw right hooks. He’s basically like a bigger version of Nonito Donaire.

Roach doesn’t need to tell Pacquiao to be careful with Cotto, because Manny is smart enough to know that if he starts slugging it out with Cotto, he’s likely to get hit hard with something and possibly cut up or taken out. And if Pacquiao doesn’t know this, he’ll figure it out quickly once Cotto starts hitting him in the grill.

At that point, Pacquiao will be fighting Cotto ever so carefully to prevent getting caught again. This fight could possibly turn out to be as boring as one of Floyd Mayweather Jr’s typical fights, especially if Cotto catches Pacquiao with a big shot early in the fight. Pacquiao might become afraid to mix it up with Cotto knowing that if he does mix it up with him too much, Cotto will take his head off.

Cotto and Pacquiao are roughly the same size, but Cotto has much more power in his punches than Pacquiao. Cotto is just a bigger fighter, more rugged and with much more power in every shot he throws. Pacquiao can wind up every once in awhile and land a hard punch from time to time, but he has to throw it perfectly to get a lot of power on it, otherwise it will just be a typical power punch from a blown up super featherweight. Pacquiao is just too little to match up with Cotto. This is going to be like beating up a small fry and it won’t even be fair.