This past weekend, HBO replayed Manny Pacquiao's March 13th welterweight title defense against Joshua Clottey at Cowboys Stadium, so by now, most of you should have had an opportunity to see his performance. I am a huge Manny fan and love to see him fight, but for some reason, as much as I hyped myself up, I just couldn't get excited for The Event like I do most good fights. Maybe it was due to the uneventful weigh-in, where Pacquiao and Clottey both held in their laughter the whole time, looking more like they wanted to exchange hugs than get into a fight in less than 24 hours. The only thing that did make it interesting was the fact that Trainer of the Year Freddie Roach spoke very candidly and confidently about how they knew Clottey's style so well that they had a plan to break him down in the later rounds and Pacquiao would be the first to take him out. Now that would have made The Event much more "eventful" given the manner in which Clottey fights and the fact that he's never even really been seriously hurt.

Clottey is a welterweight version of Winky Wright. With his tight defense, Clottey spends the majority of his time covering up, occassionally opening up and landing some good shots on his opponents. He's a very strong and durable fighter, who has faced many top fighters in the division and has never really been hurt. The fact that Manny has been on a roll lately, completely plowing through his last few opponents, made it somewhat interesting to see what would happen when he did face this big, strong fighter who seemed to always do just enough to come up short in big fights. Could he do it again? Did Roach really have the plan? Can he actually stop him?

As we know now, he couldn't and after watching the fight, I had to wonder if I was the only one not very impressed about The Event? Be honest, what was so special about this fight? Was it exciting to see that Manny is a well-conditioned athlete or that he can hit a punching bag 1300 times in a 36-minute period? We all already knew that he was and he could! The Event was nothing more than a glorified sparring session. There was no special plan for Clottey by Roach and if he did have one, it surely wasn't implemented. Everyone already knew what they were getting with Clottey and how he was going to fight, so what was the big shocker? Where was the special plan?

All I saw was 1300 punches thrown, many of which were just to stay active and keep Clottey on the defensive. Not to mention, not one of those punches ever really backed Clottey up. In fact, Manny seemed so frustrated with the fact that he couldn't get Clottey to drop his guard that he threw something I hadn't seen since I watched an episode of The Three Stooges; he threw a double punch with both hands to the side of Clotteys head. Seriously? Not one of Manny's punches ever did any serious damage. More importantly, the alarming key here is that when Clottey did decide to throw a punch, he landed cleanly and at will. Manny was there to be hit whenever Clottey was actually brave enough to throw a punch.

The one thing that stuck out from the entire fight was the post-fight interview when Roach said, "We want Floyd, but I know Shane would be a very easy fight to make." My thought is that Shane is just as big as Clottey, but a lot faster and will actually let his hands go throughout the entire fight. I'm beginning to wonder if there really is a "plan" that Freddie can come up with in order to be victorious against the winner or loser of the fight on May 1st. After reviewing Manny's performance against Clottey, it's going to take a much better gameplan, tighter defense and more efficient offense. Throwing a bunch of punches that don't land is not going to get it done against the likes of Shane Mosley or Floyd Mayweather. Landing only 14 out of 549 jabs does not lead me to believe that Manny will be as successful against a fighter who's much more willing to engage than Clottey was.

I was hoping for the unexpected to happen, but I wound up getting a night full of bad fights. Even worse was the commentary. From Lampley's "Bang, Bang, Bang" tirade to his suggestion that Manny would break Floyd Mayweather, which is a whole other debate in itself, it was a bit funny to see just how pro-Pacquiao the whole HBO crew was that night. I'd like to know the thoughts and opinions of all the loyal FightHype readers. After watching his performance against Clottey, has your opinion changed regarding the outcome of a fight between Pacquiao and Mayweather or Mosley? Email me your thoughts at jramirez@fighthype.com.