By Esteban Garduno: Too many boxing fans are giving WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao way too much credit for his recent wins over Miguel Cotto, Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton, and seem to be using those wins as reasons for why Pacquiao will beat challenger Joshua Clottey on March 13th when they meet up at the Dallas Cowboy Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. If those fighters – all come forward types that were made for Pacquiao – were still fighting in their prime and were actually fighting well at the time that they had fought Pacquiao, maybe I would drink the Kool-aid along with Manny’s fans and start seeing Pacquiao as the real deal.
But I have to say that Cotto looked like a shell of his former self at the time that he was selected for a fight against Pacquiao. Why was Cotto selected after getting his head torn off by Antonio Margarito a year earlier in an 11th round stoppage loss and then looking absolutely horrible in a questionable 12 round split decision win over Clottey in June 2009. Pacquiao’s team chose Cotto even after those bad performances.
They could have opted for a fight against Shane Mosley, who had trounced Cotto conqueror Margarito by a 9th round stoppage in January 2009. Why wasn’t Mosley picked as an opponent given that he beat the guy that destroyed Cotto? If you listen to excuses by Pacquiao fans, they point out that Cotto beat Mosley three years ago in 2007 by a 12 round decision. However, I’ve seen that fight and I along with many others feel that Mosley should have won that bout.
Cotto was running the last four rounds of the fight and looked badly tired and in the survival mode as Mosley took the fight to him. But even if that had been a dominating performance against Mosley instead of a questionable decision, I still think Mosley was the better option for Pacquiao simply because Cotto didn’t look like the same fighter as he did before by the time he got past Clottey by a narrow decision last year.
Okay, so I think the choice of Cotto as opponent seemed to be a case of picking a named fighter who was beatable and on the downside of his career. I see it as the equivalent of fighting an old toothless lion. I think Cotto will be beaten in his next fight by Yuri Foreman and that will pretty much confirm my belief that he was a shot fighter at the time that he was selected for a fight against Pacquiao.
Ricky Hatton really never did prove that he was the best fighter in the light welterweight in my eyes, so I don’t see why a win over him means anything. Hatton went life and death in his prime against an old, rusty, weight drained Kostya Tszyu in 2005, a fight in which Hatton pretty much mugged Tszyu all night long with wrestling on the inside. But beyond that, Hatton never fought guys like Junior Witter, Timothy Bradley, Kendall Holt, Ricardo Torres, Devon Alexander, and Marcos Maidana, all of which I think would have beaten him if Hatton had actually fought them.
Hatton was easily beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr. in a 10th round stoppage loss in 2007. After that defeat, Hatton continued to go after beatable fighters, taking on Juan Lazcano and Paulie Malignaggi instead of fighting the more dangerous top guys who can actually punch. Overall, I saw Hatton as being a top 10 fighter, but the bottom 10 guy at the time that Pacquiao fought him, not a number #1 fighter. I think Bradley would have beaten Pacquiao, and I would give Alexander, Torres, Holt and Maidana a good chance of beating him too.
What can you say about Pacquiao’s win over Oscar De La Hoya in 2008? De la Hoya was 35 at the time, badly weight drained from a poorly put together diet, and having lost three out of his last six fights. De La Hoya had fought only four fights in the past four years going into the fight with Pacquiao. Basically, De La Hoya was a semi-retired fighter at that the time that he fought Pacquiao, and it was insane for him to take the fight at all, let alone at a weight draining 147.
Clottey may be a defective fighter like many people have pointed out, but I think he’s got an excellent chance of giving Pacquiao a huge beating and walking away with his WBO welterweight title in the process. Clottey hasn’t been dodging the best fighters in the division his entire career, isn’t old and weight drained, and isn’t coming off a fight in which his head was nearly torn off.
Clottey obviously is badly flawed and not nearly in the class of Mosley, Andre Berto or Floyd Mayweather, but he won’t need to be. His chin will keep him in the fight long enough for him to give Pacquiao a terrible thrashing. I don’t know if he’ll win a decision over Pacquiao, because I’m not sure if that’s possible after watching Pacquiao’s two fights with Juan Manuel Marquez, but I think Clottey will give Pacquiao a terrible beating in the fight.
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