INQUIRER Sports

HOLLYWOOD ? Manny Pacquiao?s failure to knock out Joshua Clottey doesn?t disappoint chief trainer Freddie Roach a bit.

The boxing Hall of Famer was just frustrated with the way Clottey fought against Pacquiao Saturday night at the Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Roach knew Pacquiao went for the kill, but Clottey simply wanted to survive.

The Ghanaian, supposedly the bigger and stronger guy, clamped down on defense instead of launching a counterattack, which was the proper thing to do for a challenger.

It was Pacquiao who dictated the tempo of the fight, initiated the exchanges and reduced Clottey to a spar mate and virtual punching bag.

?Manny fought a very good fight,? Roach told Manila-based sportswriters Sunday. ?It?s hard to knock somebody who doesn?t want to win a fight, just trying to survive and that?s what the guy was doing.?

Roach, a four-time Trainer of the Year gave Clottey an unsolicited advice.

?If you fight for a world title, it comes once in a lifetime and you must try to win the fight.?

It?s either that Clottey got satisfied with the $1.5 million he got, the highest-ever in his ring career, or was just trying to preserve his legacy of never being knocked out.

After all, Pacquiao had stopped David Diaz, Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto in succession before agreeing to defend his World Boxing Organization welterweight crown against Clottey.

Unfortunately, Clottey, 35-win, 4-loss with 21 knockouts, doesn?t intend to follow the beaten path.

?If I was his trainer, I would have told him to engage a lot more because that?s the only way to win fights,? said Roach.

?I would rather get knocked out trying to win than going the distance because going the distance is not satisfying. He was satisfied with going the distance with Manny Pacquiao. But HBO will never use him again.?

?He had some success because he hit Manny with more right hands that I anticipated,? said Roach, who insisted that he was never bothered as the fight went longer.

?I was never worried. I was frustrated trying to figure out how to open this guy up. It could have been a more dangerous fight trying to open him up. The only time that we could hurt him was when he was punching,? he added.

But then Clottey threw very few punches, leaving Pacquiao little room and space to work with.

?He was very resilient and he was a lot more resilient that I thought he would be,? said Roach.

?The guy never changed. He did things all over and over so he?s very predictable. It?s hard to knock a guy who?s like that because if you fight for a world title, you don?t go on a survival mode. You try to win the title.?

Clottey never really did for fear of being knocked out.