By Dave Lahr: At yesterday’s weigh-in, Manny Pacquiao looked nervous as a cat who’d seen a big dog when he was forced to stand and look Shane Mosley in the eyes. I saw fear in Pacquiao’s eyes. He literally couldn’t face Mosley after only a brief face off. This isn’t a good sign, folks. It looks like Pacquiao has got a an old fashioned case of stage fright at the sight of what he’ll be dealing with tonight. It was like Pacquiao had seen a ghost. Many fights are won and lost in the face off before hand at the weigh-in.

Usually the more dominant fighter will impose his will during that brief bit of eye contact. I saw Mosley winning the event with Pacquiao looking like he wanted to jump out of his jogging trousers and head for the nearest exit. This isn’t good, folks. Perhaps Mosley may have been an idol of Pacquiao or maybe he just was awed at how good Mosley looked. I mean we all saw Mosley running around with loose clothes the past month and you couldn’t tell what kind of shape he was in.

For all we know, Mosley could have been sporting a pot belly. But on Friday’s weigh-in, Mosley looked like Mr. Universe standing next to a timid-looking, slightly chunky Pacquiao and it had to be more than a little intimidating for Manny. Fear is a terrible thing. I just don’t know what Pacquiao is going to do to get a handle on his run away emotions. And his trainer Freddie Roach looked stupefied at the sight of Mosley, so I don’t know how much help he’ll be in giving Pacquiao some rational instructions.

Roach could go to pieces and lose all of his senses and start barking instructions left and right without knowing what he’s saying. I don’t think it will matter what Roach tells Pacquiao. When you’re afraid, you often do the worst thing. And to beat Mosley the way he’s looking now, you have to be perfect. You can’t go in there ham-handed and think you’re going to beat him up with a primitive caveman attack.

Those things work on the fodder opponents that have been spoon fed to Pacquiao the last three years, but not against a quality fighter like Mosley. You got to have a plan and have to be disciplined to carry it out. Fear gets in the way of all that. I see Pacquiao going back to his primitive nature and throwing the old double punches again like he used to. This is going to be easy Mosley to pick this guy clean and score a nice easy win.