By Eric Thomas: Manny Pacquiao is taking on Antonio Margarito at a catch weight of 151 pounds for their fight on November 13th, at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington. One worrisome problem is that Pacquiao, with six weeks of training still ahead of him, is losing weight instead of gaining it according to Roy Lucera at Inquier.net, Pacquiao is losing weight and is down to 147. If he keeps losing weight, he could find himself below 140 and that would put Pacquiao at a huge disadvantage against the bigger 5’11” Margarito.

You can rest assured that Margarito will be coming in right at the very limit of the 151 pound catch weight and if he has a big weight advantage against the smaller Pacquiao it will enable him to bully, rough up and handle Pacquiao better. Pacquiao isn’t helping himself that he’s playing basketball at night after his training is done for the day.

That obviously is going to make it harder for him to keep his weight up. Of course, Pacquiao’s trainer Alex Ariza may be able to pack some pounds on Pacquiao by loading him up with protein shakes but there’s only so much quality muscle you can add in six short weeks. If anything, the weight that Pacquiao puts on quickly will be in the form of fat tissue instead of a lot of muscle.

Pacquiao looked fatter than normal in his last fight against Joshua Clottey in March. Indeed, Pacquiao looked a little swelled up in that fight, as if he had been power feeding on carbs. The extra weight didn’t help with Pacquiao’s stamina, though, as he looked exhausted in between rounds and after the fight.

Pacquiao also had problems getting out of the way of Clottey’s shots. He was hit often by Clottey in that fight. Pacquiao used very little head movement and his characteristic jumping around was missing. He looked very stationary for the most part, as if the extra weight had slowed him down. It’s a double edged sword, fighting bigger guys.

On the one hand, Pacquiao needs to be bigger to compete with them, but on the other hand the extra weight slows him down and hurts his ability to move. In this case, Pacquiao is going to need to put on more weight to compete with Margarito because he’s a lot better than Clottey and is capable of throwing many more punches than him. If Pacquiao gets into a high volume punch war with Margarito, he may come up short.