By Chris Williams: Thus far, Manny Pacquiao has captured the World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight title at a catch weight of 145 instead of the full weight for the division of 147. Pacquiao is now about to fight for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title at another catch weight, without ever having fought at that weight, against Antonio Margarito on November 13th at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. Margarito has fought only once at junior middleweight in the past six years. In other words, this is a fight for the vacant title with two guys that have either no experience or very little experience in this weight class.

You have to wonder how contenders in the division about being passed over. Now, Pacquiao will be fighting Margarito at a 151 pound catch weight instead of the full 154 for the division. This is Pacquiao’s second fight for a title at a catch weight. I think the WBC and the WBO need to either make these fights exhibition bouts or turn them into non-title fights. How can you have a title fight when it’s not occurring at the full weight for the weight class? That’s like playing a smaller football team and having to boil down to a weight that the smaller team can play you at. If something like that happened, I would think it was a joke. And I feel the same way for boxing. This is like some kind of circus thing.

I don’t mind Pacquiao fighting these slightly bigger guys, but not for titles if he can’t or won’t fight them at the full weight for the division. But I’d prefer that Pacquiao fight at the full weight and it would be nice also if he’d at least pick out the best fighter among the champions to fight for the title against. Miguel Cotto was a good fighter, but Shane Mosley was considered to be the best of the champions when Pacquiao fought Cotto. And why didn’t Pacquiao go after Sergio Martinez when he was holding the WBC junior middleweight title recently?

It wasn’t until he vacated that Pacquiao went after the belt against Margarito, who was destroyed last year by Mosley. The catch weights, the choice of opponents, I don’t understand that at all. It seems like Pacquiao is collecting titles just for the sake of collecting them and getting handicaps along the way. What’s the point of collecting them if you can’t fight at the full weight and you’re not going after the best fighter in the division? I know the junior middleweight division is weak, but I think there’s at least five or six guys in the division that are better than Margarito.