By Manuel Perez: For the past month I’ve been overrun with boxing fans of Manny Pacquiao saying how great he is 24/7 and how badly he’s going to beat Miguel Cotto, and now we’re at the moment of truth for the Filipino fighter. If he doesn’t produce the goods and ends up taking a terrible beating, there’s going to be a lot of unhappy people. But what I really want then is to see Pacquiao’s fans to admit that he’s not as good as they think he is and that he finally took on too much by fighting Miguel Cotto.

Pacquiao is good at the smaller weights, like super featherweight, but I think he’s in trouble against World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Cotto. A lot of other people are siding with me day by day, coming out of the woodwork and picking Cotto to win.

It’s an easy decision because you just look at Cotto’s fights in the past three years against quality fighters like Zab Judah, Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito and Joshua Clottey to see the superior talent and experience from Cotto. Pacquiao had problems with Juan Manuel Marquez last year and won the fight by a controversial 12 round split decision.

After that, Pacquiao took things easy with fights against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton. You can’t compare those fighters with Marquez, who is still in his prime, or Clottey, Mosley and Margarito at this point. Okay, so what we is a fighter that is coming into this fight against a prime Cotto and not having faced the best competition in his last two fights.

I think Pacquiao is basically walking into his last stand. Cotto is going to surround him and blast him apart with power shots. People are saying that Pacquiao will bum rush Cotto and try to take him out in the 1st round. I sure hope so. If Pacquiao does that, he’s going to be routed quick like. Pacquiao will be marching into his own demise by going at the teeth of Cotto’s offense.

Nobody other than Margarito has gone right at Cotto and survived for long. I don’t believe that Pacquiao will be foolish enough to attack Cotto like this. He will get a whipping by Cotto and that in turn will be an attention getter for Pacquiao. He’ll turn tail and run rather than stick around and take a beating. Okay, so Pacquiao will start to feel the heat, and will probably back off.

That’s when Cotto will pursue Pacquiao and take the fight to him, punishing him with left hooks to the body. The body punches will be Pacquiao’s undoing. He can take a head shot okay, but he can be beaten with body attacks. Alright, to Cotto hammers Pacquiao’s body and weakens him over a four or five round period. By the 6th, Pacquiao will be ready to quit from the sustained punishment. At that point Roach will step in and mercifully stop the bout to save Pacquiao.

Pacquiao can then turn around and fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. and try to pick up the broken pieces of his career. If fans want to see that fight, so be it. Cotto will move on and be fine without either of them.