By Dave Lahr: Jeff Mayweather, the uncle of unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr., is skeptical and less than impressed with Manny Pacquiao’s recent wins as he’s moved up in weight against fighters like Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton, Joshua Clottey, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito. In an article at fighthype.com, Jeff makes it clear that he thinks it’s strange that Pacquiao is beating these bigger guys given that he felt he lost both of his fights with Juan Manuel Marquez in the past.

Jeff M says “I put asterisks by them [Pacquiao’s recent wins]. We’re talking about a guy that, depending on who you’re talking to, got beat two times by Marquez. But yet, all of a sudden now, he starts dogging guys that are much bigger than him. Why didn’t he do that to Marquez back then. Marquez is a much smaller guy and if you are knocking out these guys, there ain’t no way he wouldn’t have knocked out Marquez.”

Jeff doesn’t have an answer for Pacquiao’s success against the bigger fighters. But he says he would feel much better about Pacquiao’s wins if he agreed to take the blood tests. Until then, Jeff is putting asterisks next to Pacquiao’s wins.

For me, I put asterisks next to Pacquiao’s wins because of his catch-weight fights, which I feel give Pacquiao a huge handicap against his opponents, and also because I don’t see Pacquiao’s previous wins in title fights coming against the best fighters in those weight classes. With four champions in every division, it’s a lot easier nowadays to go title shopping by looking for easy marks and then go after their titles to pick up belts the easy way. I haven’t heard of half of the fighters Pacquiao has beaten for titles in the past, and the ones I have heard of, I haven’t been impressed with them. Like Jeff M, I feel that Pacquiao lost both of his fights with Juan Manuel Marquez in the past.

Jeff also points out Floyd Mayweather Jr. could also have won eight world titles by now if his goal was just to pick up belts instead of looking for the best fights. Jeff thinks that it gets easy for fighters like Pacquiao once they get as popular as Pacquiao is right now to get catch-weight fights help you win titles. Jeff says “Once you get to a level and you become bigger than the sport itself, where basically you’re in a position to be able to say I want to fight at a catch-weight or do this or do that, that means you transcend the sport. You are changing the rules of the game.”

Yes, I agree with much of what Jeff says. Once you become as popular as Pacquiao is now, you can get pretty much any catch-weight or whatever you want from your opponent because they’re not in good position to say no to them. Sure, they can say no, but they’re probably not crazy enough to do that for fear of losing out on the big money they’d make for a fight against Pacquiao. While Pacquiao’s fans might think this is something he deserves to have because of his popularity, it sets up situations where he has a huge amount of power over his opponents.