By Manuel Perez: Well, I knew it would happen sooner or later. Freddie Roach, the trainer of Manny Pacquiao, is now predicting that Pacquiao will knock out World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Miguel Cotto next month on November 14th, at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Roach started out predicting a 12 round decision over Cotto originally before the training camp started, but then changed to a knockout shortly after that.

I knew it would eventually get around to a 1st round knockout and here we are with Roach predicting a 1st round knockout, according to the latest boxing news. Pacquiao has reportedly been beating up on his sparring partners recently, one of them being former lightweight champion Jose Luis Castillo. I figured that eventually Roach would get a little over confident after seeing Pacquiao beat up the likes of Castillo and Shawn Porter, two of his sparring partners.

I think it’s great that Pacquiao is beating up sparring partners but on November 14th, he’s not going to be facing Porter or the undersized aging Castillo, Pacquiao is facing Cotto. This is a fighter that has tore though the welterweight division, losing only once to Antonio Margarito in a fight that many people have questions about. Cotto might actually be undefeated for all practical purposes.

He’s beaten fast fighters in the past like Zab Judah and Shane Mosley, and proved that he can handle speedy fighters like Pacquiao. Next month, Cotto will be facing a fast fighter, to be sure, but not one as big as most of the welterweights that Cotto has normally competed against. The size will be missing and all that Pacquiao will have going for him is speed.

Pacquiao dominated Ricky Hatton, David Diaz and Oscar De La Hoya in one-sided fights in the past two years but none of those fighters really compare to Cotto. All of Pacquiao’s fans, including his loyal trainer, think that because Pacquiao has dominated fighters like Hatton, Diaz and De La Hoya and because he’s having a good camp, that he’ll be able to take out Cotto next month.

What they fail to realize is that Pacquiao is hopelessly over his head in this fight and will take a tremendous beating once Cotto gets him past the 5th round. Pacquiao has gotten used to beating up over-matched fighters, dominating them in the early parts of the fight and rarely getting hit back in return. Against Cotto, Pacquiao will be getting hit back and will be getting hit a lot.

This is where we will find out what Pacquiao is made of. I don’t believe that he’ll be able to take the punishment without melting like many of his over-matched opponents have. Cotto is going to beat Pacquiao down, make him submit and likely quit on his stool.

This is going to be a slaughter of the first order and it will be something along the lines of Pacquiao’s beating of De La Hoya and Hatton, only worse because Pacquiao will remain standing long enough to take severe punishment. Roach will learn to keep his trap shut when making predictions after this fight, unless Pacquiao is fighting washed up fighters.