By Manuel Perez: World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Miguel Cotto isn’t phased by all the dire predictions that Manny Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has been saying pertaining to their November 14th fight.

Cotto says “Freddie Roach is not the guy who is going to climb into the ring,” according to The Manilatimes. “If he [Roach] prepares Manny for just nine rounds then he has three more rounds,” Cotto says. Cotto is saying what I’ve been saying for some time. Roach can predict all he wants until he’s blue in the face, but ole Nostradamus isn’t the one that has to go out there and fight and he’s not perfect with his predictions. Pacquiao is the one that is going to have to step in the ring with Cotto, and Roach won’t be there with his mitts and chest protector to block the incoming shots from Cotto.

It will be Pacquiao out there all by his lonesome having to fend off the big powerful shots from Cotto, and that’s not a good thing for the Filipino star.

Cotto isn’t bothered by the talk from Pacquiao and his team about wanting to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. next. Cotto says “He [Pacquiao] can fight Mayweather as many times as he wants after I beat him.” There has been speculation that Mayweather will fight Pacquiao next regardless of what happens in the Cotto-Pacquiao fight, and that Mayweather sees the Pacquiao fight as being the bigger money bout either way.

I don’t know how that could be true if Cotto beats Pacquiao especially badly on November 14th. It seems to me that Mayweather should turn around and do the right thing and fight Cotto next. But the boxing public are notorious for their low level understanding of the sport, and many of them will likely not even hear about Pacquiao losing to Cotto and it won’t matter to them. And for the Pacquiao deep down fans, they won’t care anyway if he’s beaten black and blue by Cotto. They’ll watch him fight under any circumstances for the rest of his boxing career.

“Manny looked good against Oscar De La Hoya and Hatton,” Cotto says. “But I’m not Oscar or Hatton. Manny chose the right time to fight Oscar.” This is the truth. Pacquiao didn’t fight De La Hoya until the end of his career when De La Hoya was no longer the same fighter and was losing almost as many fights as he was winning in recent fights.

And yet, Pacquiao is given credit for beating De La Hoya, almost as if he had beaten a prime De La Hoya rather than a fighter who was past his best by a number of years. Hopefully, Pacquiao isn’t too high on himself because of his victories over De La Hoya and Hatton, because those wins can be a little bit misleading because of how far gone both fighters appeared at the time that Pacquiao fought them.