By Chris Williams: Oddly enough, trainer Freddie Roach says he’s against catchweight fights, despite his fighter World Boxing Organization Manny Pacquiao already having fought in one catchweight fight against Miguel Cotto for his WBO welterweight title last year in November and is about to fight for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title against Antonio Margarito at a 150 pound catchweight rather than the full 154 pound weight limit for the division. A lot of boxing fans are under the impression that Pacquiao’s fight against Oscar De La Hoya was fought at a catchweight. It actually wasn’t. The fight took place at 147, but it seemed too many boxing fans like it was a catch weight fight because De La Hoya agreed to come down from his normal fighting weight to 147. It wasn’t a catchweight, but it was a weight that clearly drained De La Hoya in the process of making the weight.
In an article at writer Steve Kim of Maxboxing.com, Roach says “I’m against catchweight fights. Either do it or don’t…Well, Pacquiao only had one, though. I mean, they’re calling him the ‘Catchweight King’ but he had one. So it’s a little unfair. I mean, if you’re going to fight for a title, fight for the whole one.” This is interesting news. I guess Roach doesn’t have much say so for what weight Pacquiao plans on fighting at, because he clearly plans on fighting for another title at yet another catchweight.
Its one thing fighting at catchweight for a normal bout, but it looks kind of strange for a fighter competing for a title at less than the full weight. Somehow, it cheapens it for me and I have a hard time seeing it as a legit victory, even if Pacquiao wins the fight. In both cases, Pacquiao will have bigger guys in Cotto and Antonio Margarito. But fighting them at a catchweight seems to give Pacquiao the advantage over them, since they are bigger fighters. Pacquiao’s fans like to point out that he’s a smaller fighter and therefore should be given then handicap of fighting at a catchweight.
But I think if Pacquiao can’t fight at the full limit, then why on earth if he competing for the title in the first place? That seems wrong to me. Having to drop weight to accommodate a smaller fighter just seems weird for title fights. Yeah, it’s okay for a normal fight if it’s once in a great while, but not for a title fight. I think wins like that should have an asterisk next to them and be seen as exhibition bouts and not real ones.
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