By Chris Williams: In the latest boxing news, Trainer Freddie Roach thinks Timothy Bradley is made to order for his fighter Manny Pacquiao, noting that Pacquiao traditionally does well against what Roach considers to be tough fighters. Roach uses as his examples of tough fighters that Pacquiao has excelled against as the following fighters: Ricky Hatton, Erik Morales, Oscar De La Hoya, and Miguel Cotto.

Roach said this to Philboxing.com “Ricky is [was] tough, but look at what happened to him. Oscar is tough, too and Miguel, Erik and many more who all failed to see the bout ended in 12.”

I think Roach is forgetting a few things in comparing apples and oranges. Bradley isn’t those guys, and those fights happened a lot time ago under much different circumstances. Hatton was already showing signs of wear from his binge eating and drinking and all the weight he would put in between fights. After Floyd Mayweather Jr. stopped Hatton in December 2007, he didn’t look like the same fighter after that loss. In Hatton’s next fight, he was badly hurt by Juan Lazcano in a fight that took place in the UK in Hatton’s home city of Manchester. Incredibly, while Hatton getting pummeled by Lazcano after being staggered, Hatton was able to stick his foot out to show the referee that his shoelaces were untied. The referee then halted the fight to let Hatton have his shoelaces tied despite him being in serious trouble. I count that as knockout loss for Hatton because that shoelace timeout effectively saved when Hatton staggering.

As far Pacquiao’s two wins over Erik Morales, those came against a weight drained Morales who wasn’t at his best. In 2005, a non-weight drained Morales defeated Pacquiao. That’s all you need to know. Morales was tough, like Roach says, and yet Pacquiao couldn’t handle him, could he?

Pacquiao’s win over De La Hoya in 2008 came at the end of De La Hoya’s career when he was 36, and a part time fighter who had fought only six times in the past five years. De La Hoya lost three out of his last six fights coming into the Pacquiao fight, and was clearly a shot fighter. One of those wins, against Felix Sturm, was basically a loss for De la Hoya but the judges gave it to him right before his fight against Bernard Hopkins. On top of all of that, De La Hoya agreed to fight Pacquiao 147, agreeing to the weight and going on a drastic diet that left De La Hoya painfully thin, even after he entered the ring that night. Sure, Pacquiao technically beat De La Hoya, but that wasn’t De La Hoya he beat. He beat a shadow of De La Hoya. It was kind of like when you get an old fighter and beat him at the end of his career, and the casual boxing fans without a clue think the fighter was in his prime. De La Hoya was completely shot, so Roach shouldn’t even use him as an example.

Pacquiao’s win over Miguel Cotto was at a catchweight handicap that benefited Pacquiao and hurt Cotto. He had to take weight off in order to fight Pacquiao. In hindsight, Cotto should of said no, but he wanted the money. So Pacquiao win over him but it was a win with a handicap and it came not long after Cotto had been badly whipped by Antonio Margarito the year before. So, yeah, Pacquiao beat a tough fighter in Cotto, but with a weight handicap and after Cotto had already been beaten nearly senseless by Margarito.

You see there really is nothing big about Pacquiao’s most important wins of in the past few years. The guys he’s fought for the most part were either shot or had something messing them up like weight or a recent beating.