By Chris Williams: I hate to say I told you so, but I did. I knew the Manny Pacquiao vs. Joshua Clottey fight was going to be a total mismatch. And for the many Pacquiao fans, including trainer Freddie Roach, who said that Clottey was the type of opponent that would bring an exciting fight, you were dead wrong. How could Roach be so ignorant of Clottey? I’ve see Clottey fight at least 10 times and I knew all he was capable of doing was just covering up. If Roach didn’t know that too, shame on him.

I can understand Pacquiao fans being ignorant of how inept Clottey can be as a fighter, because that would take research into other fighters beyond just their favorite fighter Pacquiao. But I was right. Clottey didn’t do anything all fight long other than just cover up and occasionally throw a punch here and there. Pacquiao hit nothing but gloves for 12 rounds, and although he threw 1200+ punches in the fight, he actually landed very of those.

It would be interesting to note how many actually. I don’t trust the guys that count punches, because they don’t see what goes half the time. Pacquiao was hitting gloves, period. Clottey actually landed the cleaner and harder shots all night long, not Pacquiao. The problem for Clottey is that he wasn’t throwing anything and was content to cover up and do nothing. Basically, Clottey fought the way he always fights, which is why I was astonished to see Roach saying before the fight how it was a good choice for Top Rank to choose Clottey, another Top Rank fighter by the way, as an opponent because Clottey will make a fight of it and bring excitement to fans. What a joke.

I knew this was a pay-per-view worthy fight. Heck, it wasn’t even a good ESPN 2 fight if you ask me. It was total mismatch between a fighter that likes to throw a lot of punches and one that just covers up looking to survive. Clottey was like a poor man’s version of Winky Wright. At least Wright throws jabs. Clottey hardly even did that.

And the undercard was pathetic. I told you it was going to be a bunch of boring mismatches. Middleweight John Duddy defeated Michael Medina by a 10 round split decision. I thought Duddy clearly won the fight, but looked horrible in doing so. I can’t believe that either of these guys is ranked in the top 15 in the middleweight division. I just don’t see any talent there.

It is fitting that Duddy will likely be fighting undefeated Julio Cesar Chavez next. Two fighters with inflated records and rankings. I see both of them as 2nd tier fighters. I can’t believe Duddy was on the undercard. However, his fight with Medina was still the best fight of the entire card, which tells you much of a stinker this card was.

Welterweight contender Alfonso Gomez and Jose Luis Castillo went at it, if that’s what you want to call it. Actually, it was Gomez doing all the punching and Castillo doing absolutely nothing and looking totally shot. I don’t know how either of these guys is ranked in the top 10 in the welterweight division. Both looked 2nd tier to me. Gomez ended up winning the fight when it was stopped after the 5th round, because Castillo didn’t come out for the 6th.

It’s a good thing that the fight was stopped because Castillo was doing nothing. If you look at Castillo’s older fights, he was a nonstop puncher, but now. It’s all Castillo could do last night to throw a jab or two. He literally couldn’t the trigger and when he did, he looked weak and slow.

Castillo needs to retire. But what was really sad was watching Castillo get beat by Gomez, a fighter who I can’t EVER see winning any of the welterweight titles. That’s the sad part. He got beat by a contender. I think this was horrible mismatch on paper going into the fight and sure enough, it turned out to be as bad as I thought would be.

The fight between lightweights Humberto Soto and David Diaz for the vacant WBC lightweight title wasn’t interesting either. Soto, who usually slugs it out, boxed all night long, and seemed to be fighting at half speed. He still ended up knocking Diaz down twice. Diaz, a crude slugger, made Soto look like another Ali. It wasn’t an interesting fight because Soto chose to box.

If he had gone out slugging, I think he would have taken Diaz out within 6 rounds. Instead, he fought a stinker of a fight and made it look really boring.

All in all, the entire card was totally boring and not worth the $49.95 charged for it. Like I said, I knew the main event between Pacquiao and Clottey was going to be a horrible mismatch and I was right. This wasn’t a PPV worthy fight in my view, and the undercard fights lumped with it, certainly wasn’t either. Pacquiao fans are probably in denial about the Clottey fight, thinking Clottey was so boring because Pacquiao made him that way. Wrong!

Clottey is always boring and never throws a lot of punches. That’s why I couldn’t believe he was picked out of all the opponents for Pacquiao to fight, and I also couldn’t believe how Roach went on about him 24/7, pumping him up and saying how he’s going to make for an entertaining fight. I know some gullible people believed that, but I know Clottey and knew he was going to make a boring fight. This should have been on regular HBO, not PPV. And to have this huge mismatch at the Dallas Cowboy Stadium, in front of 50,000 people is even worse. I can only wonder what all those people are thinking after seeing these one-sided fights.