By Dave Lahr: Freddie Roach, the brilliant trainer for Manny Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KO’s), says that they will be trying to get a knockout win over the usually steel-chinned Joshua Clottey on March 13th. Roach says in article at Sport.stv.tv, “We’re going to throw [Clottey] off in the first four rounds. He has never been attacked like this before.” Roach then later predicted a 6th round knockout win for Pacquiao. There you have it. Roach is planning on sending Pacquiao out on an attack mission to try and score an early knockout against Clottey.

I sure hope Roach isn’t sorry for his brilliant fight plan against Clottey. I mean Clottey isn’t the type of fighter that most welterweights try to knock out. Mostly, they try to just survive a bout with Clottey and win it without getting beaten up so badly. This should be a fun bout to watch, especially if Pacquiao makes the mistake of bum rushing Clottey early in the fight like Roach says he’s going to have him do. I can just see it now.

Pacquiao rushes madly at Clottey, throwing wild shots as he follows Roach’s brilliant fight strategy to the letter and promptly gets knocked on his backside by one of Clottey’s big left hooks. I wonder if and/when Pacquiao gets knocked down early in the fight whether Roach will have the presence of mind to change his strategy for Pacquiao in the fight by having him box rather than slug?

I can’t see Roach changing a thing until Clottey starts putting a serious hurting on Pacquiao. It may take a little more for Roach to back off with his grand strategy of trying to having Pacquiao “overwhelm” Clottey with punches. Maybe when Pacquiao starts getting bloodied and battered Roach will come to his senses and back off and start barking some new orders for Pacquiao. I just hope by then Pacquiao has enough of his senses left in his head to follow Roach’s glorious advice.

There’s going to be a point of no return for Pacquiao in this fight. Once Clottey hurts Pacquiao with something or has him cut and bleeding, I see it pointless for Roach to bother with changing course for Pacquiao. By then, Clottey will have him right where he wants him and will dominate or stop the Filipino fighter. Pacquiao fights badly when he’s cut, so if Clottey opens up a cut on him, he’s as good as done.

Roach can tell Pacquiao whatever and it won’t matter. Clottey will go after Pacquiao and finish him off like he’s hunting a wounded animal. But something tells me that Roach will stubbornly stick to his vision of having Pacquiao overwhelm Clottey, even when things are looking bleak for Pacquiao.

Like a person whose car is stuck in 5th gear, I think Roach will stay the course and keep Pacquiao bum rushing Clottey just so he can be right about his original prediction of an early knockout victory for Pacquiao. I mean it won’t be Roach’s who has to take the pulverizing shots from Clottey; it will be Pacquiao who’s stuck following Roach’s crazy plan of overwhelming Clottey.

That’s like trying to ram the Titanic through a huge iceberg. It isn’t going to happen. Pacquiao is going to take a royal beating by Clottey, and Roach is going to have a lot of egg all over his face in this one. They might as well have me train Pacquiao, because I could come up with a much better plan than bum rushing Clottey and trying to overwhelm him with punches.