By Chris Williams: I’m having hard time getting excited about this fight with Joshua Clottey (35-3, 20 KO’s) saying so many nice things about Manny Pacquiao. I know he’s happy that he got selected as Pacquiao’s opponent, but come on, man, where’s the fire? I want to throw every time I read all the niceties coming from Clottey about Pacquiao. Somehow I just can’t see Clottey winning when he’s constantly pouring compliments down Pacquiao’s throat 24/7. I just see the guy as another one of Pacquiao’s victims. I understand why Clottey is happy.

Clottey is getting at least a $1.5 million for the fight, and that number could very well double after the final Pay-Per-View numbers are in. However, Clottey has already signed the contract for the fight, and doesn’t need to worry about Pacquiao and his team pulling out of the fight and leaving Clottey with nothing.

It’s time to start showing some fire by telling Pacquiao what you’re going to do to the guy, and or least give the boxing fans a reason to want to throw down $50 to see this fight. I can’t see a reason to want to buy it because of the undercard, because I think it’s frankly awful. There’s no I want to see on the undercard and I wouldn’t even watch those guys fight if it were ESPN for free.

So for me, it’s all about the main event between Pacquiao and Clottey. Is this a $50 fight? I’m asking myself that question, and I keep coming up with the answer ‘no.’ I could easily change my mind if Clottey would stand up and start showing some meanness and make me think he’s going to win. But I don’t see that. All I’m hearing is nothing but overlapping compliments of Pacquiao about how great he is and all that good stuff.

And of course Pacquiao is being his usual gracious self. He never says much about his opponents to get excited about. For a fighter like Pacquiao, he really needs the type of opponent that can play up the bad guy role, and that’s missing in this fight. Ideally, a fighter should naturally have a hard edge to them at least when describing what he’s going to do to his opponent.

But Clottey sounds so casual even when he’s talking about how he plans on beating Pacquiao. It’s like he’s describing his grocery list. No fire, nothing. I can’t see Clottey winning. Something is missing from besides just his skills. I don’t see the fire there, so why should I want to buy this card? I think Clottey needs to get psyched up for this fight and explode on Pacquiao during every interview, and launch into him come fight night. But I just don’t that in Clottey.

The way he talks is the way he fights I’m afraid. I see him covering up, laying on the ropes and just taking shots until the referee pulls the plug on the fight and stops it early on. It won’t matter that Clottey probably won’t be hurt in the least at the time that the fight is stopped. Just by staying up against the ropes and taking shots without firing back it will be enough for the referee to stop this fight. Pacquiao will probably throw a ton of fast punching in a 30 second time period and get a quick stoppage, even with many of his shots missing.