Pacquiao Ponders Cotto as Next Opponent

It’s being reported that Pound-for-pound king and junior welterweight champ Manny Pacquiao will be ringside for the Miguel Cotto – Josh Clottey welterweight title fight to scout Cotto as his next opponent.

 

Let’s not act too fast though, Josh Clottey is a very dangerous opponent for Cotto and has a legitimate chance at winning. In fact, I wouldn’t even call it an upset if he did I think it’s such an even match-up.

 

Remember the last time Cotto was in line for a megafight? As long as he beat Antonio Margarito, it was heavily discussed that he would be in line to be Oscar De La Hoya’s December 2008 opponent. Instead, Cotto lost to Margarito (a win for Margarito that has since been tainted by speculation that he loaded his gloves for that fight) and Pacquiao got the De La Hoya fight instead. I’m sure Cotto remembers and won’t be looking past Clottey.

 

- I’m not too familiar with Pacquiao’s adviser Wakee Salud, but I’m not sure how keen I am on his advice.

 

He said the following to The Philippine Star:

 

“Manny should go for Cotto. It’s the wise fight. It’s the better fight. For one, he’s a straight up fighter. He’ll come in and that’s what Manny wants, someone like Ricky Hatton. I think we have a better chance against Cotto than Mayweather who will run away from Manny inside the ring. Not a beautiful fight.”

 

While he is correct in saying that Cotto has been in more crowd pleasing fights that Mayweather, to compare Cotto to Ricky Hatton is just crazy. Cotto has way more boxing skills than Hatton and can punch a lot harder.

 

Salud goes on to say, “Mayweather can dance the whole fight and beat Manny on points. And even if Manny wins, he may not look good.”

 

I happen to have more confidence in Pacquiao than that. While it’s a challenging fight (which makes it marketable), Manny has the skills to possibly (but not definitely) beat Mayweather. And when was the last time Pacquiao was in a boring fight? He has the speed to keep up with Floyd and make it a quick paced exciting bout.

 

The craziest has yet to come though. Salud says, “Manny should take on Cotto, beat him, then run for congress, and face Mayweather later on.”

 

(A) Cotto getting past Clottey to get a Pacquiao fight is no sure thing (B) Pacquiao beating Cotto is no sure thing, potentially ruining a massive payday against Mayweather (C) If people in the Philippines don’t vote for Manny Pacquiao’s bid for senate because he loses a fight, they’re choosing their leaders for all the wrong reasons. I think they’re smarter than that. (D) Have more confidence in your fighter!

 

Maybe I should get into advising fighters.