By Dave Lahr: Freddie Roach, the trainer that likes to make predictions, is now predicting for his fighter Manny Pacquiao to stop Joshua Clottey in the 6th 7th rounds on March 13th. Roach likes to start high with his knockout predictions and then come down in the rounds as the fights draw nearer. In this case, Roach started with a 12th round knockout win for Pacquiao, and then last week changed it to a 9th round knockout. Now suddenly Roach is shooting for the 6th or 7th rounds.

What’s weird this is that Roach isn’t picking one specific round for the KO. This is kind of a departure for Roach, because with his predictions he usually picks a specific round for his knockout predictions. It could be that Roach is feeling less confident about Pacquiao’s chances after seeing how strong Clottey has been looking as of late.

I just hope Pacquiao is getting some kind of motivation out of this because I don’t see him getting anywhere close to a knockout in this fight. In fact, I think Clottey is going to give Pacquiao a vicious beating that he won’t soon forget. Maybe Pacquiao wins, but maybe he doesn’t. But whatever the case, I see Clottey putting a serious hurting on Pacquiao and beating him up to the point where Pacquiao might not feel like singing after the fight.

Roach says “He’s [Clottey] going to last six or seven rounds. He’s going to be overwhelmed with the punches. He’s never been attacked like this before.” I guess Roach hasn’t seen Clottey’s fights against Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto.

If he had, he’d know that Clottey has been in with fighters that tried – and failed – at overwhelming him with punches. Clottey took the huge shots from both Margarito and was never hurt in the least by either one of them. Roach’s predictions are nothing but blather as far as I’m concerned. Clottey isn’t going nowhere for 12 rounds.

If there is anyone getting stopped in this fight, it’s going to be Pacquiao, not Clottey. Pacquiao has already been stopped twice in his career, so he would be the one more familiar with being knocked out than Clottey.

I know if Clottey is going to win, but I do know he won’t be getting knocked out and he’s going to be the one looking in better shape by the end of this fight. He’s going to be too big for the small Pacquiao to manhandle like his last three opponents Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto. De La Hoya was shot at the time of his fight with Pacquiao.

Hatton and Cotto are small fighters are not true welterweights in my view. Cotto may fight at welterweight, but at 5’7”, he’s more of a light welterweight than a true welterweight. Pacquiao will be matched against the biggest opponent size-wise of his career and I think he’s going to have a lot of problems with Clottey.

I expect Pacquiao to get really busted up in this fight unless he decides to stay on the outside and do a little running. If he gets too close to Clottey for any length of time, Clottey will beat Pacquiao black and blue with his bigger size and strength. I know I’m right about all of this.