By Dave Lahr: Trainer and former fighter John David Jackson points out that World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao has some flaws in his game in an article at Fight Hype, saying “Pacquiao is not a good inside fighter… and he also can’t fight off the ropes. Clottey has to capitalize on that. If he can do that, he can beat him.”

Jackson has a good point. Pacquiao isn’t a really great inside fighter. Pacquiao does most of his work at medium range. He likes to get in quick, landing a few punches and then get back on the outside to safety. Pacquiao will be facing former International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Joshua Clottey on March 13th at the Dallas Cowboy stadium, in Arlington, Texas.

Jackson thinks that Clottey can take advantage of Pacquiao’s weakness for the inside game. However, for Clottey to be able to do that, he’s going to have to come forward more often and make sure he avoids sitting with his back against the ropes. Clottey lacks aggressiveness at times and his stamina is also a huge question mark for him in this fight.

Clottey always says he’s working on building up his stamina, yet each fight Clottey still ends up looking exhausted by the 8th round. Jackson is well aware of Clottey’s stamina problems, commenting “He [Clottey] can be dominating and then for some reason, he dies out the second half of the fight. You can’t do that against Pacquiao because he’s going to fight you for 3 minutes of every round.”

This is likely what will happen on March 13th. Clottey will probably look like a world beater for five or possibly six rounds, but after that, Clottey will probably fade badly, and spend the rest of the bout with his back against the ropes covering up.

Despite Pacquiao accomplishing a great deal as a fighter, Jackson thinks he still hasn’t he’s a top fighter, saying “Until he beats a [Floyd] Mayweather or a [Shane] Mosley, then I don’t know if he is the top fighter.” Pacquiao has the chance to fight Mosley before the Cotto fight, but Pacquiao and his team selected Cotto to fight instead of Mosley for some reason.

It seemed like a strange choice in hindsight, because Cotto has been pulverized by Antonio Margarito a year before the Pacquiao fight, and hadn’t looked good in a subsequent fight against Clottey in 2009. Some people felt that Cotto was a shot fighter at the time he was picked by Pacquiao’s management to fight the Filipino star.

Mosley, for his part, has beaten Cotto’s conqueror Antonio Margarito by a 9th round stoppage in early 2009. Based on that win, it would seem that Mosley should have been selected by Pacquiao’s team to fight him, but for some reason Mosley wasn’t picked.

Pacquiao has the chance to fight Mayweather as well, but that fight didn’t happen because Pacquiao didn’t want to have blood taken from him for blood testing for drugs any closer than 24 days before his fight with Mayweather.