MANNY PACQUIAO walks around with a contagious glow that radiates on those around him.

That’s usually the case with his trainer, Freddie Roach, but Tuesday was different for the owner of the famed Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles.

The bespectacled 50-year-old, who nurtures fighters from around the globe at his boxing orphanage for the talented and hungry, had a devilish glint in his eye and a tone that belied his oft-mild manner.

When I asked him if he though Pacquaio could hurt Clottey as the African claims he has not felt the punches of Antonio Margarito and Miguel Cotto, Roach answered abruptly: “Yes I do think I can hurt him. If you watch those fights he was hurt a couple of times in both those fights so he’s either just delusional or lying.”

More than that, Freddie reckons Clottey was on the verge of bailing out against Cotto last June, showing character flaws he is sure his charge will capitalise on.

“I believe there is quit in him,” added Roach. “I believe he quit in the last two rounds with Cotto and gave the fight away. [When he was thrown to the ground in round five] He was trying to get out of it the easy way. He tried to quit and said he couldn’t keep fighting so he tried to win a decision on a foul.”

Roach told me he had been misquoted saying his man will win in nine but he is sure Manny will be victorious in 12 rounds and that the scorecards will be unnecessary.

“I’ve never seen Manny better. Never better,” he purred.

But that’s his job, to talk his man up. What he often comes under fire for, however, is his part in hyping his fighter’s contests. Some say the trainer should train and the promoter should promote the fight and Roach’s ire was raised by the criticism. “**** them. I don’t give a ****,” he said. “They don’t pay my bills. If I get inside your [the opponent’s] head and bother you and get you thinking about me instead of him I’ll do it,” he said.

It has worked, too. Reports say Clottey is fuming at Roach’s prediction that he won’t go 12 rounds and the Ghanaian responded saying he will not even have to box his best ever fight to win.

“It doesn’t matter if I box the best fight of my life if I’m going to win,” he said. “But if I’m doing the right thing in the ring, connecting with good punches, blocking his punches, it’s a win.”

He sees himself as a modern-day Rocky, who has done things the hard way and overcome great odds to be in the position he seems eternally grateful for being in. “I’ve been doing everything I can,” he said of his career. “I’m doing the best. I think I deserve some respect. I always think that because I’m not from here I’m from Africa the respect is low. But the people want to respect what they want. You can’t force them to respect you.”

He fights for his 11-year-old daughter, Zeenat, who he hopes never watches him box. Not even on tape. It goes beyond fighting for respect now, although he knows he will earn it if he ends Manny’s miracle run which includes the high-profile scalps of Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and Miguel Cotto.

“They are all good fighters and I’m not saying he beat them because they’re nobodies,” he said. “They were somebodies. But the one thing that I have that they don’t have is my defence and that I see punches coming. And I don’t feel them.”

The acid test will come when he feels Manny’s blurring fists on Saturday night.