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Manny Pacquiao Versus Miguel Cotto: Do trainers make or unmake world champion? YOU BET THEY DO! And the comming Pacquiao-Cotto fight is not an exception.
When one considers that Freddie Roach is up against a trainer who is merely 32 years old and basically a nutritionist and not a boxing trainer and the only training experience he could show is merely a split decision of his ward against Clottey, then, there is is really something to worry about in the Miguel Cotto Camp.
The distractions is tremendous, to say the least, in the Cotto Camp, for its ward that is up against the best pound for pound boxer in the world.
And what more distraction could ever fall on a boxer preparing for such mega fight than the following, thus:
1. Cotto parted ways with his long time trainer-uncle, Evangelista Cotto before the Clottey fight. Result: A near disaster when Cotto won by the slimmest of margins, a split decision with his former nutritionist, now elevated as the chief trainer!
2. A nasty brawl between the champion and his former trainer-uncle that resulted with the latter filling a damage suit against the champion plus back earnings which the trainer claims were not given to him.
3. Domestic problems involving Cotto and his wife that resulted in the separation of the two. Another woman with whom Cotto has a child is another point in the triangle. The champion has two children with his legitimate wife that he desperately want to save from all these domestic problems.
4. Cotto's weight problem is starting to show its ugly head. And a week from fight time, it is evident that the Cotto camp is starting to feel the pressure.
5. Bob Arum was reportedly not taking any side in this mega fight between his prized wards but it is obvious that a Pacquiao win shall set the event for probably a record breaking boxing purses for next year.
And to say the least, Freddie Roach, perhaps the best trainer in this decade, is calling the shots against a relatively an unknown 32-year-old whose name is not even worth remembering.
What more, it is claimed not in a few corners whose boxing IQs are world's best, that Cotto is already a damaged boxer after that cheating Margarito fight.
Frankly, I can not imagine a boxer who is about to challenge the worlds best pound for pound boxer in the world would face such a tremendous handicap brought about by his own undoing.
And to think that even beyond the boxer that is Manny Pacquiao, there is the shadow of the best trainer in boxer for the decade or perhaps for the last 25 years that is ably handling the technical side of the fight.
It does not get any better than this for the Manny Pacquiao camp.
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