MIGUEL COTTO: "FREDDIE ROACH IS GOING TO EAT HIS WORDS"

"Freddie Roach is going to eat his words," promised a confident Miguel Cotto as he took time out from his training camp in Tampa, Florida to address recent comments made by Freddie Roach during a media conference call when he questioned Cotto's confidence and stood firm by his prediction that Pacquiao will knockout the Puerto Rican star. "What Freddie Roach says, I do not care. The best thing he can do is prepare Manny Pacquiao to be the best he can possibly be...Roach is not going to get in my head. He talks a lot and thinks the same thing will happen when Pacquiao fought Hatton and he and Floyd Mayweather Sr. argued," Cotto said with a smile, insisting that he was ignoring the comments of the world-class trainer.

"We are not going to fall into that game. No stupid thing that they say is going to affect me and nothing he says will change the outcome of the fight," the WBO welterweight champion reiterated as he spoke to Raul Alzaga of Primera Hora. To his credit, Cotto has remained focused on his training despite all the talk and distractions that have gone on in both camps leading up to November 14th. "The fights are won in the gym and here we have worked 100 percent. Also, the nutrition has helped a lot, so the state of mind I'm in is very different now than it has been in the past. In fact, we are very near the weight," Cotto revealed, showing little concern of making the agreed upon 145-pound catchweight.

While Cotto does recognize Pacquiao's achievments throughout his career, he's still unimpressed with his skills inside the ring. "Pacquiao is a great fighter, but he's a 126-pound fighter...he will never have the strength of Miguel Cotto," he continued. "The only thing different about Manny now from three years ago is that he gained weight and had victories over Hatton and De La Hoya. That has its merit, but in boxing terms, he's still essentially the same type of fighter."

It's clear that Miguel Cotto is extremely confident in his abilities and his preparation for this bout. The question is will he have the right gameplan when he finally steps into the ring with the Filipino phenom. Hopefully Cotto doesn't truly believe that Pacquiao is the same fighter that he was three years or that he's going to be that much stronger than him. If he does, then Cotto, like all of Pacquiao's past opponents, is going to be in for a rude awakening on November 14th.

Source: http://fighthype.com/pages/content6067.html