LAS VEGAS - Bob Arum thinks Miguel Cotto understands how the world is looking at him, but he does not.

Yesterday, during a press conference called to hype Saturday night’s welterweight title fight between Cotto and the best fighter in the world, Manny Pacquiao, the promoter of both men stood at a podium a few feet from Cotto and tried to explain the situation.

“Psychologically, in this fight, he is not the star,” Arum said of Cotto, the once defeated WBO welterweight champion he has promoted since he first turned professional nine years ago. “He knows it and I know it. But Miguel Cotto, as Miguel will attest, is the biggest obstacle in Manny’s path.”

Cotto sat stone silent as Arum spoke, but his face spoke for him. It was like a dark cloud had passed over a summer picnic.

In Cotto’s mind he is more than an obstacle for any man he faces. More than a steppingstone between Pacquiao and the biggest fight in boxing, a match with Floyd Mayweather Jr. that is already being talked about. More than they think he is.

Certainly, he knows it is Manny Pacquiao’s picture on the cover of the Asia edition of Time magazine not his. It is Pacquiao who is being written about on the front page of the Sunday New York Times [NYT], not him. It is Pacquiao’s world until Saturday night. Then, if they have forgotten who he is, he believes he will remind them. Harshly.

“What they say and what they do does not concern me,” Cotto said. “They know what they have in front of him. He better be focused on what they will have in front of him in Miguel Cotto.”

Although he has lost only once in 35 fights and is 14-1 in world title bouts with 11 knockouts, Cotto knows how much of the boxing world looks at him. They see him the way his promoter did yesterday. Like he’s yesterday’s news.

Pacquiao is the heavy favorite and his trainer, Freddie Roach, is predicting a knockout, the only matter in question in his mind is whether it will be sooner or later. Cotto remains stoic through all this, but neither blind nor deaf. When WBC executive Mauricio Sulaiman stood holding a diamond-studded trophy belt that will be presented to the winner even though this is a fight for the WBO welterweight title, Cotto watched with dead eyes as Sulaiman first handed the belt to Pacquiao, who put it in front of Roach as if there is no question that is its final resting place.

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Eventually the belt was handed to Cotto, but he touches it as if it were radioactive and then handed it back to Sulaiman. He smiled, but it was the mirthless smile of a fighter who does not agree that he is not still the star.

“It doesn’t matter if the people want me to win or not,” Cotto said later. “It is just a fight and I have worked to win it so we will see.”

He is asked if he feels better and stronger than before his last fight, a tough one against Joshua Clottey in which he won the WBO title, but in which he seemed tentative and tired in the late rounds. With blood streaming from a bad cut over his left eye, he was often retreating, yet found a way to win.

But it was the kind of win that convinced his critics that he has not yet recovered from the terrible beating he took from Antonio Margarito a year ago, a beating that left him not only bruised and bloodied, but down on one knee without having been hit in the 11th round, forcing the fight to be stopped.

In fairness, he’d been hit plenty by then and so there are doubts now whether he will ever recover from the damage of that night. He looked tentative in his first fight back and not much different at times against Clottey and now he is facing the new star of boxing and understands what is at stake.

“Forget about Freddie Roach,” Cotto said. “He can only train Manny the best he can. He may say and think Manny will knock me out, but at the end of the day, it is just Manny and Miguel Cotto in the ring. It’s really not important to me what the boxing world wants to see.

“Once I beat Manny Pacquiao they can continue their plans and do what they want but I am not going home without winning this fight.”

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Source: http://news.bostonherald.com/sports/columnists/view.bg?&articleid=1211337&format=&page=1&listingType=sco#articleFull

As he has done in the past, Freddie Roach offered a $1,000 award to any of Manny Pacquiao’s (49-3-2, 37 KO) latest sparring partners who could knock down the Filipino during preparations for his WBO welterweight title fight with Miguel Cotto (34-1, 27 KO) this Saturday.

During Wednesday’s pre-fight press conference, Roach said that even after 141 rounds of sparring in Pacquiao’s recent camp, his money is safe.

“I told each sparring partner if they could knock him down, they’d get a $1,000 bonus from me — the money is still in my pocket,” Roach said. “He did get shook once though, he did. (Shawn) Porter hurt him one time, and Manny came back on the next combination and dropped him.”

The incentive offered by Roach might surprise some, considering the trainer’s beliefs on knockouts.

Roach has said many times that Cotto hasn’t been the same since taking the worst beating of his career in an 11th-round TKO loss to Antonio Margarito on July 26, 2008.

That loss, the only blemish on Cotto’s professional record, came under scrutiny when plaster was found in Margarito’s gloves in his next fight against Shane Mosley in January.

According to Roach, whether Margarito had cheated in his fight with Cotto is irrelevant — the impact on Cotto’s mentality is the same.

“It doesn’t matter if Margarito did it in that fight or not, a fighter is still not the same following a knockout like that,” Roach said.

When asked what it takes to get over a devastating knockout, Roach simply answered, “Time.”

If there is an example that contradicts Roach’s theory, it can be found in his own fighter.

Pacquiao has been knocked out twice in his professional career. Filipino boxer Rustico Torrecampo knocked him out in the third round in 1996 and Medgoen Singsurat did it again in the third round in a WBC flyweight title fight in 1999.

Pacquiao responded both times by stringing together double-digit win streaks, although he did admit that both were initially difficult to overcome.

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“After the (Singsurat) fight I was thinking, ‘Oh, I’m going to stop boxing because maybe boxing doesn’t like me,’” Pacquiao said. “But then I started thinking to use them to focus harder for my next fights.”

By the time Pacquiao met Roach for the first time in 2001, he was two years removed from the second knockout and made a promise to his new trainer when the issue came up.

“He showed me both knockouts,” Roach said. “The first time he got knocked out, one of his countrymen hit him with a good shot and he was out. The second time he didn’t make weight and had lost his WBC title on the scale. He fought anyway and got knocked out by a body shot.

“I asked him, ‘Do these still bother you?’ He said, ‘Nah, they are no big deal. It will never happen again.’”

The final verdict on whether Cotto has lost something from the Margarito fight might reveal itself by the end of Saturday night’s event inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Some agree with Roach that the 29-year-old fighter looked different in a 12-round split decision with Joshua Clottey at Madison Square Garden in June.

It was the first split decision ever in Cotto’s career and just the third time in his last 14 wins he hadn’t stopped his opponent.

Others believe Cotto, who says the fact he won the Clottey fight is enough to prove he’s put the knockdown behind him.

“The Margarito fight is out of my mind, out of everything about me,” Cotto said. “If it was still in the way, I wouldn’t have made the comeback I already made this year.”

Source: http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/nov/12/freddie-roach-says-miguel-cotto-not-same-after-kno/

LAS VEGAS
, NEV. – This Tuesday! November 10, boxing’s No. 1 pound-for-pound king of the ring and the box office and the reigning Fighter of the Year, MANNY “PacMan” PACQUIAO, and the pride of Puerto Rico and three-time world champion MIGUEL COTTO, will make their MGM Grand Arrivals, officially kicking off Fight Week for Fire Power -- their sold out welterweight championship mega fight. Pacquiao and Cotto will arrive at the MGM Grand's Front Lobby Porte Cochere at 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. PT, respectively. The event is open to the public and the media.

Pacquiao (49-3-2, 37 KOs), of General Santos City, Philippines, has won six world titles in as many different weight divisions ranging from 112 to 140 pounds. Defending WBO welterweight champion Cotto (34-1, 27 KOs), from Caguas, Puerto Rico, has held a world title every year since 2004.

Promoted by Top Rank, in association MP Promotions, Miguel Cotto Promotions, MGM Grand and Tecate, FIRE POWER: COTTO vs. PACQUIAO, will take place, Saturday, November 14, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, and will be produced and distributed live on HBO Pay-Per-View, beginning at 9 p.m. ET / 6 p.m. PT. For Pacquiao vs. Cotto fight week updates, log on to www.pacmancotto.com, www.hbo.com or www.toprank.com.

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HBO's® fast-moving reality series "24/7 Pacquiao/Cotto" returns with the premiere of the finale This Friday! Nov. 13 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT. HBO will replay episodes No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 consecutively prior to the premiere of episode No. 4. The replays begin at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on Nov. 13. Episodes Nos. 1-3 are also available on HBO ON DEMAND.

Seven of the MGM MIRAGE properties along The Strip will host closed circuit viewing in conjunction with Pacquiao vs. Cotto. The resorts include MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, Monte Carlo, Luxor, Circus Circus and Excalibur. Remaining tickets for the closed circuit telecast at all venues are priced at $50, not including applicable service charges and handling fees. All seats will be general admission and will be available at each individual property’s box office outlets and at all Las Vegas Ticketmaster locations (select Smith’s Food and Drug Centers and Ritmo Latino). To charge by phone with a major credit card, call Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000, or visit www.mgmgrand.com or www.ticketmaster.com. Ticket sales
are limited to 20 per person.

Source: doghouseboxing.com

By Manuel Perez: Well, it looks like Manny Pacquiao’s loyal boxing fans spoke too soon when they started opening their yaps about Pacquiao dominating his sparring partners. In an article today from Abs-Cbs News, Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer, said this: “He [Pacquiao] took some real hard shots,” during the sparring sessions with Shawn Porter and Urbano Antillon.

Roach didn’t mention which sparring partner did the most damage, but it was probably the bigger, stronger Porter. Boy, it doesn’t sound too good for Pacquiao. He’s having problems with his defense again. I’d hate to think what would be happening if this Miguel Cotto in their throwing heat at Pacquiao instead of just some sparring partners.

Roach would probably need a giant spatula to peel Pacquiao off the canvas every time that Cotto would flatten him. It looks like Roach is bringing in former lightweight champion Jose Luis Castillo to spar with Pacquiao next week. That’s an odd choice of a sparring partner if I ever heard one. Castillo is 35 now, and hasn’t done much in the past four years since losing his WBC lightweight title to Diego Corrales in 2005.

For kicks, Roach is offering $1000 bucks to any one of the sparring partners that can knock Pacquiao to the canvas. I’d like to get a piece of that action, but Roach would have to quit being a tightwad and loosen his purse a lot more and make it $5000 to put Pacquiao on the canvas. What’s with the $1000 thing? That hardly buys you anything nowadays. Roach needs to sweeten the pot and make a lot more for the partners, so they’ll come and try to take Pacquiao’s head off. Antillon and Porter are good fighters. They more incentive than that to knock Pacquiao on his backside.

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So, I’m really worried about Pacquiao taking these big shots from his sparring partners. I thought he was so great that he didn’t get hit. What’s happening with the man? Is it age that is starting to show its ugly head or is Pacquiao just not as good as some people think he is? I don’t know what to think about the Filipino. It doesn’t look good right now.

Here Pacquiao is facing his best opponent by far since his ‘victory” over Juan Manuel Marquez last year. Going from fight against Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton to a bout against Cotto on November 14th is going to be huge leap up in completion. That’s like going from addition to calculus in one semester without the intermediate courses like Algebra and trig in between. Pacquiao is going to be floundering against Cotto and end up looking hopelessly lost and not sure what to do.

Source: boxingnews24.com