By Sean McDaniel: For boxing fans who were concerned about World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (50-3-2, 38 KO’s) asking his number #1 challenger Joshua Clottey (35-3, 20 KO’s) to fight him at a catch weight for the March 13th title defense, you can rest assured that Pacquiao won’t be using one, at least for this fight. According to the Manila Bulletin, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum is saying that Pacquiao will be fighting without a catch weight against the smallish 5’8” Clottey.

That’s a big relief. It wouldn’t be good if a champion was to have his challengers fighting him at a catch weight each time out, as that would somehow make it seem as if the champion needed a handicap each time.

“There’s going to be no catch weight on this one,” Arum says. Pacquiao, 5’6 ½”, fought his last fight against the 5’7” WBO welterweight champion Miguel Cotto at a catch weight. In Pacquiao’s bout with Oscar De La Hoya, Oscar had to move down from 154 to fight Pacquiao at 147. That fight wasn’t a catch weight, but it did involve Oscar moving down in weight to make the fight. De La Hoya came into the fight looking badly weight drained.

Clottey, 32, will still have a slight height advantage of an inch and half, and will have a three inch reach advantage. However, Clottey doesn’t typically fight on the outside, preferring to mix it up at close quarters. It’s unlikely that Clottey’s size advantage will be much if any help for him in this fight with Pacquiao.

The one thing that will help Clottey is his toughness and hand speed. He’s very fast, although not as quick as Pacquiao. He can take a heck of a shot, and is hard to hit cleanly because of his high guard. In his last fight, Clottey was narrowly beaten by Miguel Cotto by a 12 round split decision in June 2009. Clottey fought Cotto to a standstill up until the 9th round. However, after that, Clottey ran out of gas and spent the better part of rounds 10 through 12 on the ropes absorbing shots from Cotto.

Clottey has problems with his stamina. In his fight with Antonio Margarito, Clottey dominated him for the first four rounds, but then seemed to run out of gas after that and ended up losing the fight by a 12 round decision. After the fight it was learned that Clottey had injured one of his hands, but he looked to have tired out as well from the high pace of the fight in the early going.

This could be an issue for his bout against Pacquiao. Manny sets a high pace, and doesn’t let up on his opponents with his steady pressure. If Clottey can’t fight hard for 12 rounds, then he’ll end up losing by a decision. I can’t see Pacquiao stopping Clottey, because Joshua has a great chin and is good at picking off punches with his gloves.