Pacquiao knocks down a sparring partner, but then gets plastered

By Boxing News - 10/16/2009 - Comments

By Manuel Perez: It looks as if World Boxing Organization welterweight contender Manny Pacquiao has knocked down another one of his sparring partners, this one Shawn Porter, according to abs-cbn NEWS. But before you get all excited about it, Porter got up and tagged Pacquiao with a huge hook to the head, says trainer Freddie Roach. “Yes, Shawn [Porter] went down twice but he came back very well and caught Manny with a good hook. He came back very well,” Roach said.

That’s not good news that a sparring partner, who has only a pitiful 10 fights under his belt is able to take Pacquiao’s shots, get up off the deck and belt the Filipino with a hard hook to the head. That tells me that Pacquiao lacks finishing power at welterweight, and even if he can knock Cotto down, which I don’t see happening, Cotto will get up and ruin his world by hurting Pacquiao in return.

I think Pacquiao can dish it out but he can’t take it. That’s the thing. You got to be able to take a punch when you’re facing a slugger like Cotto. It doesn’t matter if Pacquiao lands a ton of shots and looks good for a round or two, if he can’t take Cotto’s power. This isn’t Ricky Hatton or Oscar De La Hoya that Pacquiao is fighting. He’s fighting a fighter who is still in his prime, not an easy mark made to order for Pacquiao.

That’s where Pacquiao is going to fall apart. And I frankly don’t care if he keeps beating up his over-matched, under qualified sparring partners until he’s blue in the face, he’s still going to get stretched by Cotto next month.

Beating up Porter or Jose Luis Castillo doesn’t equate to beating a top tier fighter like Cotto. Does anyone think that Castillo or Porter are top tier fighters at this point? They are sparring partners and would be mowed down just as easy by Cotto if they were sparring with him.

Roach seems to think that Pacquiao is ready for Cotto, saying “It only means that he’s ready for the fight and that he’s doing very well,” Roach told The Philippine Star’s Abac Cordero. I kind of doubt it. This looks like Roach isn’t mentally acknowledging who Pacquiao is sparring with. Sure, he’s beating up on his sparring partners a little bit, but one of them is regularly giving Pacquiao problems.

It wouldn’t look good and it would make Cotto train even harder.

But let’s pretend that Pacquiao is battering Porter around the ring. So what? He’s beating up on a sparring partner. Cotto is going to beat the stuffing out of Pacquiao and show that he’s no sparring partner. If they wanted to have Pacquiao spar with a fighter with power and skills that are similar to Cotto, Roach should have had Alfredo Angulo come spar with Pacquiao during the camp. That would be hilarious. Roach would probably need a stretcher on hand to pick Pacquiao up off the canvas for every sparring session that takes place with Angulo.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall for sparring sessions like that. Pacquiao would come forward and Angulo would quickly knock him down. Pacquiao gets up and is immediately knocked down again. The stretcher would then be brought in to take Pacquiao out of the ring. At that point, Roach would likely give Angulo the bad news by telling him that he can’t spar with Pacquiao anymore.



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