By Alexander Fugate: In March 2005, Manny Pacquiao battled Erik Morales for the first time. The bout was at the junior lightweight limit of 130 pounds.

At the time of the fight, Morales entered the ring at 140 and Pacquiao came in at 139 pounds. Morales won a 12 round unanimous decision. On November 26, 2006 these two finished their trilogy. Pacquiao entered the ring that night at 144 pounds while Morales came in five pounds lighter at 139.

Two fights later Pacquiao had a rematch with Marquez. The night of the fight Pacquiao outweighed Marquez by four pounds, 145 to 141. In his next fight, Manny moved up in weight to the 135 pound division. There he fought David Diaz who weighed 148, to Manny’s 147 pounds when they entered the ring.

After that Pacquiao fought De La Hoya. Entering the ring Manny was the bigger man weighing 148 ½ pounds to De La Hoya’s 147. After that was Hatton. Entering the fight Hatton weighed 152 to Manny’s 148. And in his last fight against Cotto, Manny is said to have weighed 149 when he entered the ring and no unofficial weight for Cotto was ever disclosed. Apparerently Manny was worried of fighting a real welterweight as he would only agree to fight Cotto at 145 pound catch-weight. (All these are HBO’s unofficial weights.)

Mayweather on the other hand has been beating bigger men, at their weight, since entering the pro ranks. In 2001, Mayweather battled the undefeated Diego Corrales. Corrales had a four and a half inch height advantage and weighed 146 compared to Floyd’s 136 ½ when they entered the ring (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 21, 2001). Then in 2002 he took on the best fighter at 135 pounds, Jose Luis Castillo. Despite tearing his rotator cuff just two days before this bout, Floyd went ahead as scheduled. Floyd was obviously small for this weight proven by the fact that he only weighed 138 entering the ring compared to Castillo’s 147. Against Carlos Baldomir kocorner.com reported that Mayweather entered the fight at 150 pounds and Baldomir weighed 161. In his next fight Mayweather took on De La Hoya. Mayweather said after the bout that when he came to the arena he weighed just 148 pounds, compared to De La Hoya who weighed 164 pounds, according to his trainer Freddie Roach (http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3634701). That’s almost a 16 pound difference! This was essentially a welterweight against a middleweight.

Looking over their record, it appears that Mayweather has often entered the ring at a considerable disadvantage in size on numerous occasions. It doesn’t appear that Pacquiao has ever faced opponents who weighed anything near nine pounds more, where Mayweather has fought and beat champions in four different weight divisions that came into the ring with at least a nine pound advantage.