Roach predicts 12 round decision win for Pacquiao over Clottey – News

By Boxing News - 01/24/2010 - Comments

Image: Roach predicts 12 round decision win for Pacquiao over Clottey – NewsBy Dave Lahr: Trainer Freddie Roach is predicting a 12 round decision win for his fighter World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao over challenger Joshua Clottey on March 13th at the Dallas Cowboy stadium, in Arlington, Texas. In an article at GMA News, Roach says “This guy [Clottey] has never been stopped before. He’s a tough guy. If the knockout comes, that will be a bonus but I’m planning to win in a 12 round fight.” Roach, however, has a history of changing his predictions during the course of training camp and often making his predictions become earlier and earlier knockouts to the point where he’s predicting knockouts in the first three rounds.

If history is any guide, I’m predicting that Roach will change his original prediction of a 12 round decision and eventually arrive to the point where he sees Pacquiao knocking Clottey out in the 1st or 2nd round. Last time out, Roach started off high for Pacquiao’s fight with Cotto and ended up with predicting a 1st round knockout.

As you can see, Roach isn’t infallible because Pacquiao ended up stopping Cotto in the 12th round, and an argument can be made that the fight shouldn’t have been stopped at all because Cotto was still fighting back and Pacquiao was missing a lot with his final flurry. Roach is making a nice safe pick initially by going with a 12 round decision for Pacquiao over Clottey. It’s an easy pick, because Clottey has a reputation of having a steel chin and has never been stopped before during his career .

Clottey has been in with some big punchers like Antonio Margarito, Cotto, Zab Judah, and Richard Gutierrez, but has never been hurt in any of those fights. If Pacquiao goes looking for a knockout against a fighter with the power and chin of Clottey, I can see Pacquiao getting hurt himself. Clottey is bigger, tougher and more suited to a war compared to the smaller Pacquiao. Roach needs to be training Pacquiao to hit and stay on the outside so that he doesn’t get hit too much by Clottey.

This is going to be a tough fight for Pacquiao in the first nine rounds. After that point, Pacquiao can probably take over the fight and win the remaining rounds. But in the first nine rounds, Pacquiao is going to be getting hit a lot by Clottey unless Roach has Pacquiao staying away and using movement. This isn’t the kind of opponent like Cotto, Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya where Pacquiao can blast them out with combinations. Clottey won’t go anywhere and will fire back and punish the smaller Pacquiao if he tries to fight it out with him.



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