By Chris Williams: Although the November fight between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez is slated to take place at a 144 pound catchweight, my advice would be for Marquez to completely ignore the upper limit of the catchweight and focus instead as if this were one of his typical lightweight bouts where he comes in at 135. He’s a lot faster at 135 than he was when he made the mistake of agreeing to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr. at a 143 pound catchweight in 2009.

Marquez looked as slow as a slug in that fight when he weighed in at 142, and that extra weight cost him big time in terms of hand speed and ring movement. Even Pacquiao is starting to slow down in his fights that he’s been coming in at 145. If Pacquiao had the presence of mind to look at his fights before he started bulking up in 2008, he was a lot faster without the extra weight. The only thing the weight did to Pacquiao was slow him down. It didn’t make him any better of a fighter and didn’t give him any more power.

If anything, the weight has hurt Pacquiao more than helped him. The thing is he’s going to continue to come into his fights over-muscled and it’s going to hurt him in his performances getting worse and worse over time. Of course, you hide Pacquiao diminishing returns by the kinds of fighters he’s been matched against as of late. It sure helps when you put in with old guys 39-year-old Shane Mosley, who looked about as shot as a fighter could look even before he fought Pacquiao.

Beating a guy that old and shot hides how Pacquiao is starting to lose his speed. Marquez shouldn’t make the same mistake that Pacquiao is making my adding anymore size. He’s much better off being the lighter fighter and the quicker guy. It doesn’t matter if Pacquiao out-weighs him by 10 pounds or more on fights night, Pacquiao looks like he’s going to keel over due to exhaustion nowadays with all the useless muscle he’s lugging around.