By Dave Lahr: Manny Pacquiao has been in some minor battles during his career, but nothing like what he’s going in store for him tonight against Joshua Clottey. It’s been ages since Pacquiao’s has been in with a fighter that could stand up to him. Juan Manuel Marquez comes to mind as the last fighter that Pacquiao was put in with who had a great chance of beating him. Marquez ended up losing a controversial 12 round split decision to Pacquiao in March 2008, but was never given a rematch for some reason.
Two years later, we have Pacquiao stepping in the ring with Clottey, a fighter with good power but with a few glaring flaws on the offense side of things.
Because of low work rate and habit of putting too much of his energy into his defense, Clottey is expected to lose to Pacquiao. Manny’s trainer, Freddie Roach, has been making loud and constant predictions lately saying that Pacquiao will be the first fighter to ever stop Clottey. Well, tonight old Nostradamus’ predictions are going to come to a crashing halt when Pacquiao takes a ferocious beating that neither he nor his predicting trainer won’t soon forget.
Okay, so Pacquiao is going to come in looking to slug with Clottey from the first seconds of the fight. No matter what instructions that Roach has given to Pacquiao to use an in and out attack against Clottey, Pacquiao will be ignoring this advice and going straight into the teeth of Clottey’s offense. Pacquiao is going to be riding on a crest of euphoria due to the madness of 45,000 lovesick Pacquiao fans in the Dallas Cowboy stadium.
There’s no way Pacquiao will be able to ignore all that adoration from the Pacquiao fans. Pacquiao is going to get caught up trying to “entertain” all these rabid fans, and that’s going to be Manny’s undoing. With all those fans screaming their heads off at every punch that Pacquiao throws, he’s going to wade in hip deep in pure hell by trying to throw down against the bigger, stronger Clottey and find himself trapped in a war that he can’t hope to win.
Okay, so Pacquiao will start throwing punches without even thinking, and just throwing madly in every direction hoping to land something big. Clottey will stay calm, cool and collected, and will pick apart the Filipino with heat seeking missiles, blasting them off Pacquiao’s head without stop. Pacquiao will find it tough going immediately and start to rethink his original strategy – if you want to call it that – of attacking Clottey.
Pacquiao will find himself in beyond the point of no return just as Custer found himself totally surrounded at the battle of the big horn by enemy on all sides. If there was going to be any retreat for Pacquiao, it will have long past that point in his journey, as Clottey will attack him like a vulture ripping apart a wounded lamb.
Over and over, Clottey will rip into Pacquiao with his beak-like punches, tearing Pacquiao’s face apart and making him look like an hound dog that’s been sitting in the sun for too long. Pacquiao will quickly wilt under the heavy bombardment from Clottey, and just fall apart completely.
It’ll be like a house with a weakened foundation crumbling moments after a huge earthquake. Despite giving it a Valliant effort, will go down in a heap on the canvas. The fight will be stopped at that point by the referee. All the fans that wasted their money and time coming all the way to Dallas to see their hero fight, will walk out of the stadium, shaking their heads in disbelief and feeling totally glum. In the corner, Roach will be wondering what happened, grieving over the loss of Pacquiao and the end of the gravy train.
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