Cotto needs to be firm with Pacquiao: No catchweight handicaps

By Boxing News - 08/15/2012 - Comments

Image: Cotto needs to be firm with Pacquiao: No catchweight handicapsBy Chris Williams: Former WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto is one of the remaining big three opponents that Bob Arum has hand picked for Manny Pacquiao to choose from for his November 10th fight in Las Vegas, Nevada. Arum really likes the idea of Pacquiao fighting Cotto again because of the potential pay per view success that this fight can have.

However, Arum has already spilled the beans by mentioning that there would have to be a catchweight handicap involved for Pacquiao in order to make the fight happen. Arum is talking about a catchweight of 150 lbs and he thinks he can convince Pacquiao to agree to this. I personally think Cotto should stand firm about there being absolutely no catchweight handicap. Cotto already agreed to giving Pacquiao a handicap in 2009 when he made the mistake of agreeing to fight Pacquiao at a 145 pound catchweight instead of the full weight of 147 for the division. It was kind of a situation where Cotto had no choice but to agree to it because he was thrown for a loop when the World Boxing Organization installed Pacquiao as the #1 WBO contender at the last second and agreed that the WBO title can be on the line for fight. Cotto took the fight but was clearly weakened by the catchweight. The beating that Cotto took was hardly worth the extra cash that he got.

This time Pacquiao needs to fight at the full 154 pound weight limit if he wants to fight Cotto. If it was good enough for Mayweather to fight Cotto at the full weight limit for the junior middleweight division than it should be more than good enough for Pacquiao, because he sees himself as being in the same league as Floyd. If he really is then Pacquiao should readily agree to fight Cotto without the handicap for weight.



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