By Manuel Perez: Well, it looks as if WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto will be forced now to have his World Boxing Organization title on the line regardless of whether he likes it or not against Manny Pacquiao. All I can say is It figures. The WBO is forcing Cotto’s hand by saying that Cotto has to put the title on the line if the fight is go take place between the weights of 141-147. Since Cotto agreed to fight Pacquiao at a 145 pound catch weight, Cotto will be prevented from coming in at the full 147 pounds for the bout.
This gives the advantage to Pacquiao, because he’ll have a weaker Cotto to deal with on November 14th, while at the same time still have the chance to fight for Cotto’s WBO belt, even though it neutralized welterweight clash. In effect, it’s like a welterweight match with training wheels for Pacquiao. He’ll still get credit if he wins, and only the boxing fans that dig deeper will realize that Cotto was prevented from coming in at the full 147 pounds for the weight class.
If Cotto fails to agree to put his WBO title on the line, he’ll be stripped by the WBO, and the title will be on the line anyway because the WBO recently made Pacquiao the number #1 mandatory for Cotto’s title a couple of weeks ago.
That was a real swift move by the WBO. They saw that Cotto was unwilling to put the title on the line because this was at a catch watch and they then decide to make Pacquiao the number #1 challenger so that Cotto would have no other choice but to put the title on the line.
If he doesn’t, and vacates or is stripped, Pacquiao will get to fight for the vacant title against Cotto or whoever steps in and take the fight. That’s really big of WBO to do this. They must really like Pacquiao a lot to push him above the other contenders in the WBO to force Cotto’s hand. That puts Cotto in a situation where he has little choice but to put the title on the line.
It’s either that, or he decides not to take the fight. Cotto’s not about to shoot himself in the foot, so he’ll probably take the fight so that he can get a huge payday, but this really ridiculous what the WBO is going to him. All this just so that Pacquiao can get a chance to win a 7th world title in seven different weight classes.
Never mind that many of the wins have come against fighters that probably shouldn’t have held titles in the first place or that Pacquiao was given one of the hugest gift decisions I’ve ever seen in my life with his 12 round decision win over Juan Manuel Marquez last year in March 2008.
The important thing is Pacquiao will be given the chance at a 7th world title, along with the catch weight.
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