By Manuel Perez: Well, it looks like Manny Pacquiao’s loyal boxing fans spoke too soon when they started opening their yaps about Pacquiao dominating his sparring partners. In an article today from Abs-Cbs News, Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, said this: “He [Pacquiao] took some real hard shots,” during the sparring sessions with Shawn Porter and Urbano Antillon.

Roach didn’t mention which sparring partner did the most damage, but it was probably the bigger, stronger Porter. Boy, it doesn’t sound too good for Pacquiao. Sounds like he’s having problems with his defense. I’d hate to think what would be happening if this Miguel Cotto in their throwing heat at Pacquiao instead of just some sparring partners.

Roach would probably need a giant spatula to peel Pacquiao off the canvas every time that Cotto would flatten him. It looks like Roach is bringing in former lightweight champion Jose Luis Castillo to spar with Pacquiao next week. That’s an odd choice of a sparring partner if I ever heard one. Castillo is 35 now, and hasn’t done much in the past four years since losing his WBC lightweight title to Diego Corrales in 2005.

For kicks, Roach is offering $1000 bucks to any one of the sparring partners that can knock Pacquiao to the canvas. I’d like to get a piece of that action, but Roach would have to quit being a tightwad and loosen his purse a lot more and make it $5000 to put Pacquiao on the canvas. What’s with the $1000 thing? That hardly buys you anything nowadays. Roach needs to sweeten the pot and make a lot more for the partners, so they’ll come and try to take Pacquiao’s head off. Antillon and Porter are good fighters. They more incentive than that to knock Pacquiao on his backside.

So, I’m really worried about Pacquiao taking these big shots from his sparring partners. I thought he was so great that he didn’t get hit. What’s happening with the man?

Here Pacquiao is facing his best opponent by far since his ‘victory” over Juan Manuel Marquez last year. Going from fight against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton to a bout against Cotto on November 14th is going to be huge leap up in completion. That’s like going from addition to calculus in one semester without the intermediate courses like Algebra and trig in between. I see Pacquiao floundering against Cotto and end up looking hopelessly lost and not sure what to do.