By Chris Williams: Trainer Freddie Roach says that his fighter World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) will be moving down to 140 after his catch-weight fight at 144 pounds against unbeaten Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) on November 22nd at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, in Macao S.A.R., China.
Roach says there are a lot of different guys that the 35-year-old Pacquiao can fight in that weight class, and he thinks that some of the fighters will follow him down to that weight.
Pacquiao hasn’t stopped anybody in his last 8 fights dating back to 2009, and Roach blames that long dry spell in Pacquiao fighting in the wrong division. He believes that he shouldn’t have been fighting in the 147 pound division because he was facing guys that were bigger than him. But once he moves down to 140, Roach sees the knockouts coming back for Pacquiao. Roach doesn’t say anything about the fact that Pacquiao was having no problems knocking out welterweights in 2008 and 2009.
“He’s [Pacquiao] never been a big puncher at 147,” said Roach via RingTV.com. “I don’t think he’s lost his punch or his killer instinct; he’s just been fighting bigger, stronger guys. I think the knockouts will still start coming again at 140.”
Pacquiao has been fighting guys like Brandon Rios, a pumped up lightweight, Tim Bradley, a pumped up light welterweight, Shane Mosley, a former lightweight, and Juan Manuel Marquez, a former featherweight. These guys weren’t any bigger than Pacquiao. I don’t know where Roach is coming from in saying he’s been fighting bigger fighters in the welterweight division.
Mosley, Marquez, Bradley and Rios were all fighters that started their careers at much lower weights. None of them have a welterweight sized frame. The reason Pacquiao couldn’t knock them out is more of an age thing in my view.
I see it as Pacquiao having lost a few steps from the fighter he was in 2008 and 2009. He’s clearly not the same fighter he was back then, and I can’t see anything changing with him moving down to 140. If he couldn’t knock out Brandon Rios, Mosley, Marquez and Bradley at 147 then it’s highly unlikely that he’ll be able to do it at 140.
“There’s a lot of competition in the 140-pound division, a lot of them are going to 147 because they want to fight Manny for the bigger money but as soon as Manny goes to 140 all of those will come back down,” said Roach.
The competition that Roach is speaking of are guys that are managed by Al Haymon, such as Danny Garcia and Lucas Matthysse. I don’t see him letting those guys fight Pacquiao. The only guys that Pacquiao can fight at 140 or fighters like Terence Crawford once he moves up in weight and Ruslan Provodnikov. Those aren’t big fights.
Pacquiao can fight rematches with Algieri, but that’s not a big fight either. Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank will likely have him fighting the likes of Raymundo Beltran and possibly Yuriorkas Gamboa, but those aren’t big fights either. Mikey Garcia won’t fight Pacquiao. I can’t see that happening.
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