Pacquiao will be too quick for Clottey but probably will have to settle for winning by decision

SF Boxing Examiner | Colin Seymour

Welterweights can stand up to Manny Pacquiao, but few if any can keep up with him. Joshua Clottey won’t be the exception Saturday on HBO pay-per-view.

Pacquiao is only human, and Clottey is one impressive specimen of human being. He’s the biggest man Pacquiao has fought yet. Miguel Cotto and Ricky Hatton were a bit bigger than Manny, and Oscar De La Hoya famously towered over him, but Clottey will appear to be from a much higher weight class. How is Pacquiao supposed to counter the Big C in Big D?

Not to worry. The issue is whether Clottey can counter Pacquiao. He’s very competent and intelligent, but he’s notably unspectacular, especially when every one else’s adrenaline starts kicking in.

There’s more interest in where Pacquiao is fighting than whom. Dallas with its new football stadium, as San Francisco’s AT&T Park would, offers a glamorous, circusy atmosphere in which champions like Pacquiao thrive and challengers like Clottey are merely “the opponent.”

If Clottey were to turn aggressor, as he ultimately did in his 2008 battle of counter-punchers with left-hander Zab Judah, the 33-year-old from Ghana would give himself his best chance to win.

It’s also the strategy that would offer Pacquiao’s best chance of stopping Clottey, in six rounds say, by beating him to the punch time after time.

That’s why Clottey won’t be aggressive. He’ll pick his spots, counter effectively from time to time and win some rounds, but Pacquiao will win most of them to earn a unanimous decision.

Source: Examiner.com