By Dan Ambrose: Former International Boxing Federation (IBF) welterweight champion Joshua Clottey (35-4, 20 KO’s) reportedly will be moving up in weight to first the junior middleweight division and then to the middleweight division because he’s finding harder and harder to to make the welterweight 147 pound limit. Clottey, 33, at one time was a knockout puncher at welterweight, but has only two knockouts in the last six years. Clottey’s mysterious lack of power is due to him having to boil down to make the 147 pound weight limit for the welterweight division.

In between fights, Clottey walks around at a muscular 180. Unlike a lot of fighters who put on fat in between fights, Clottey stays very lean in between fights. He’s just too big for the welterweight division now and probably has been for the last six years.

Clottey is only 5’8″, which would be on the small side for junior middleweight and middleweight, but his power and hand speed could be enough for him to beat the bigger fighters in the division. The current WBA junior middleweight champion is Miguel Cotto, a fighter who Clottey came very close to beating last year in a narrow 12 round split decision loss in June 2009.

In Clottey’s last fight, he was beaten by Manny Pacquiao by a 12 round unanimous decision in March. Clottey didn’t throw enough punches to win the fight, but he did cause a lot of damage to Pacquiao’s face with the punches that he did throw. If Clottey had been at the right weight for that fight, his punch volume would likely have been much higher than it was. But then again, he wouldn’t have gotten the big money fight against the smaller Pacquiao because the Filipino star is limited in how high he can go up in weight due to his small frame.

Clottey still hasn’t decided who he’ll be facing next. He’s been out of the ring for the past six months after losing to Pacquiao. Clottey didn’t help himself in the loss to Pacquiao by not throwing enough punches. It may be difficult for Clottey to get a big named opponent because of his unimpressive performance against Pacquiao. He’s already fought Cotto, so he’s not an option either. Clottey has also fought and lost to Antonio Margarito, as well. Clottey would be perfect for junior middleweights like Kermit Cintron, Alfredo Angulo, Paul Williams or Sergeii Dzinziruk. He would be a tough opponent for them, but it would be a fight that would help both fighters. We don’t know how good Clottey is at junior middleweight. Perhaps he won’t tire out as badly as he’s done at welterweight recently.