Editor’s note: With preparations for the fight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto in full swing, Fire Quinito’s special guest critic, Alekos Orendain, takes a look at Pacquiao-Cotto 24/7.

Honestly, I could spend all day listening to narrator Liev Schreiber (aka Sabretooth in that piece of crap movie Wolverine: Origins) talk about the various analogies between life inside and outside the ring and not be bored. Add that to HBO’s top notch production values and throw in 2 world class boxers, Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, into the mix and you’ve got yourself a show that’s pretty hard to screw up. This, however, will be Pacquiao’s 3rd time being featured in the groundbreaking series and for all of his… talents, there’s only so much about Pacman that you can show that can be thought of as interesting after 3 runs. So I was a bit worried that this time around, maybe the show wouldn’t be as compelling and dramatic as before.

Mother Nature stepped in to provide some drama Pacquiao’s training camp. Typhoons Pepeng and Ondoy feature prominently in the show, showing some pretty intense footage and adding a different kind of urgency to the fight and its outcome. Although some people may feel that too much time was spent dwelling on the typhoons and their aftermath (including a slew of slow-mo shots of military helicopters landing that would easily fit in any Michael Bay movie), I didn’t mind at all. Personally I think any publicity for victims of Ondoy and Pepeng, even if it’s in a show that promotes boxing, is good publicity.

More worrying for fans of the pound-for-pound champion though is that it seems that typhoons aren’t the only things causing trouble in training camp. Between his unwillingness to stick to trainer Freddie Roach’s instructions and the general douchebaggery his lackey Michael Koncz, Pac-fans everywhere might have reason to fear that maybe Pacquiao isn’t taking the fight as seriously as he ought to be.

Over at Cotto’s side at the world, HBO plays up the the focus and determination going on in Cotto’s camp against the confusion surrounding Pacquiao’s camp. And you know what? It’s really, really working. From what I’ve seen in the show, Cotto seems to be 100% business. It doesn’t help that Cotto is by far the meanest, toughest looking opponent Pac has ever faced. Seriously, Cotto looks about as far from a pasty, fun loving Englishman as Pacquiao is from being a good actor. The show even went as far implying that maybe Cotto should really be undefeated and was just a victim of some cheating at the plastered hands of Antonio Margarito, the man who handed Cotto his first and only loss.

By the end of the show a number of things were going through my mind. I worried about all the shit that seems to be going down in Pacquiao’s camp. I was still chuckling at a certain scene during the introduction of Cotto’s team members (they made a big splash in what is possibly the funniest and most unexpected introductory scene in the history of 24/7). More importantly, I was left wondering who has the hotter wife: Pacquiao or Cotto?