Clottey-Pacquiao: Joshua nearly beat Cotto so can he go any further against Manny

By Boxing News - 01/08/2010 - Comments

Image: Clottey-Pacquiao: Joshua nearly beat Cotto so can he go any further against MannyBy Peter Wells: With the bad news of Pacquiao-Mayweather being called off, Manny has already gone on his path to another fight on the same night. World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao isn’t going easy as it first looked.

There were mentions of Paulie Malignaggi and Yuri Foreman, but Manny realized the Foreman fight would be too much of a risk. Pacquiao has now gone for a fighter in his prime and who can pull of the best when against the best.

Joshua Clottey has 3 defeats on his record, earlier in his career he lost to Carlos Baldomir which was nearly 11 years ago, then he lost on points to Antonio Margarito where he injured his arm at the halfway stage which people say cost him the fight. His last defeat was to the fully recovered Miguel Cotto, in a fight which saw Clottey floored for the first time in his career with a strong jab. But Joshua came back strong and went to a close split decision in which if he had have kept it up at the end he would have won, or put it another way if he hadn’t have been floored he would have won. Clottey has some decent wins on his record including Zab Judah whom he stopped on cuts in 9 rounds, which actually went to the scorecards in which Clottey was just in front but increasing his lead. Clottey also earlier defeated Diego Corrales whom unfortunately lost his life not to long after.

Manny Pacquiao should win this fight; Clottey may bring his A game, but usually comes up short at the end. Clottey has been floored by just a hard jab by Cotto. If Clottey can fight a special fight then maybe he could pull something off, with a fight like this you really don’t know what’ll happen until the fight happens. Clottey can be lazy and wouldn’t want to get caught napping against Pacquiao.

I give Manny respect for taking a good 147 pounder like Clottey although I’d have preferred it to be still against Floyd Mayweather Jr. If Manny wins then there’s always a chance of a second shot at getting a fight with Floyd, if not then Shane Mosley (as long as he doesn’t falter against Andre Berto) would be a great fight and Mosley would be really up for it.

Joshua would not give up, he’s from Ghana and is as tough as a brick and Manny would need something special to stop him. But let’s face it Manny is something special. Clottey showed his determination against Margarito, but can complain a little too much. He went down on a few occasions against Cotto complaining about low blows and punches to the back of the head.

I’d give Manny the shout here at the moment, when it gets closer to the fight I’ll give a more detailed preview. I see Manny coming from behind to beat Clottey easily in the latter rounds to take a relatively close decision, leading by about 4 points.



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