By Esteban Garduno: Tonight’s fight at the Dallas Cowboy Stadium is mostly filled with mismatches of the worst kind. On paper, the bout between Joshua Clottey and Manny Pacquiao figures to be an easy win for Pacquiao over a limited Clottey, but I see Clottey pulling off a huge upset over Pacquiao tonight to spoil Manny’s party. Clottey will stay in Pacquiao’s face, make him work harder than he has in ages, take his shots and punish the Filipino. Pacquiao has become accustomed to beating up on over-matched opponents and Clottey isn’t going to go down like the other guys that have been fed to Pacquiao in the past two years.

Once Pacquiao finds that he’s not able to take Clottey out, it’s going to dawn on him that he bit off more than he can chew in this fight and will start running. Unfortunately, the running won’t work for Pacquiao, because Clottey will chase Pacquiao down and punish him with hard shots to the head and body, busting him up early.

Once Pacquiao starts to bleed badly from the face, he will come unglued and start showing concern for his cut like he did in his first fight with Erik Morales in 2005. Instead of ignoring the cut and fighting all out, Pacquiao will dab at the cut over and over again, as if checking on it will make things better for him. It won’t. In the meantime, Clottey will continue to drill Pacquiao with hard shots, hitting him harder than any other fighter has during Pacquiao’s long career in the ring.

Pacquiao will probably wish that he hadn’t moved up in weight to take on the bigger fighters, because Clottey is going to make him sorry for having moved up. Pacquiao will finally be shown the light for having stepped it up against the bigger fighters. Clottey, who will outweigh Pacquiao by at least 10 to 15 pounds tonight, will likely batter Pacquiao like a school child, beating the stuffing out of him for 12 rounds. Pacquiao will stick it out to the bloody end, but will end up losing badly to Clottey.

Prediction: Clottey by 12 round decision.

***

In the other fights on the card, look for middleweight John Duddy (28-1, 18 KO’s) to get beaten by Mexican Michael Medina by a 10 round decision and suffer his 2nd defeat of his career. Duddy is a limited brawler with little power and zero defense. Medina isn’t much better, but probably more than good enough to give Duddy his second loss.

Prediction: 10 round decision win for Medina.

***

Alfonzo Gomez should have more than enough to defeat an old 36-year-old Jose Luis Castillo (60-9-1, 52 KO’s) by a 10 round decision. Castillo has no business fighting at welterweight and hasn’t looked good in over five years. Gomez will beat him but prove nothing in doing so. Gomez is a contender, gate keeper fighter, but not a future champion. Castillo needs to retire.

Prediction: Lopsided 10 round decision for Gomez.

***

Lightweight Humberto Soto will destroy David Diaz. This won’t be a fight. This is a bad match up in view, because Diaz is a brawler in the Duddy mold but without the power or the skills to compete with a talented fighter like Soto.

Prediction: 6th round TKO win for Soto.

***

As for the other fights on the card, none of them are worth mentioning.