>By Esteban Garduno: On Saturday March 13th, boxing fans will get to see how well Manny Pacquiao can do against a legitimate welterweight when he fights Johsua Clottey, who has been mistakenly described over and over again as a big welterweight. That’s not correct. At only 5’9”, Clottey isn’t what you would call a big welterweight. There are much bigger welterweights than him. Paul Williams, Kermit Cintron and Antonio Margarito are big welterweights.

Although Cintron and Williams are doing most of their fighting in the light middleweight division nowadays out of necessity to get fights, they are still welterweights in my eyes and would fight any of the top welterweight champions if only they would step up and fight them. They won’t. Clottey is, though, a decent sized welterweight, and bigger than Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton and Oscar De La Hoya with his frame size.

As a result, we’ll get to see how Pacquiao does against a real welterweight instead of smaller guys like Cotto, Hatton and the washed up De La Hoya who had no business fighting at welterweight. I expect Pacquiao not to look good against Clottey. I think Clottey is going to pull off a major upset and beat Pacquiao on March 13th. What makes me think this is because of Clottey’s greater size and strength compared to Pacquiao.

Clottey is going to catch Manny at some point in the fight and badly hurt him with a big shot, and put him down on the canvas. Freddie Roach, the trainer for Pacquiao, has been saying things that leads me to believe that Pacquiao is going to try and overwhelm Clottey with a massive all out attack. This is the wrong approach to use against a powerful fighter like Clottey, and it shows me how cocky Roach is getting with his fight approach towards Joshua.

I expect Pacquiao to use separate waves of attacks in which he throws sustained combinations of 10 to 30 punches at a time to try and get a quick stoppage. During one of these foolhardy attacks, Clottey is going to take advantage of Pacquiao’s aggressiveness by landing a big shot that he won’t be able to take. The shot will stun Pacquiao enough so that Clottey will be able to land another follow up shot to the head of Pacquiao to put him down.

The question here is whether Pacquiao will have the recuperative powers to make it out of the round without being stopped altogether. I don’t know if he can honestly. I’ve seen him hurt before and instead of clinching like crazy like most fighters do, Pacquiao keeps fighting back throughout the entire period in which he’s hurt.

That might work against smaller fighters who don’t have the power to take him out, but not against a true welterweight like Clottey who will pounce on Pacquiao and make him eat a storm of power punches. Pacquiao will literally be forced to swallow Clottey’s massive shots as he rams them down the Filipino’s throat with huge force. Pacquiao will try to back off a little with his arms flying every which way as he loses his senses completely.

Clottey, seeing that he has a wounded prey in front of him, will smile to himself and tear into Pacquiao with vengeance and rip huge shots to Pacquiao’s wide head, sending him flying backwards on the canvas where he will roll around trying to figure out what happened to him. The referee will allow Pacquiao a lot of time to try and get to his feet, but it will be no use. The fight will be stopped and Clottey will be awarded Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight belt.