By Dan Ambrose: Once again, Floyd Mayweather Jr. does one better than Manny Pacquiao by facing top WBC welterweight champion Victor Ortiz to fight next on September 17th. What makes this fight so good is that Ortiz is perhaps the number #3 guy in the entire welterweight division behind Mayweather and Pacquiao. Ortiz proved himself worthy of the #3 spot by beating Andre Berto in April in one of the most exciting fights of the year.
The bout draw big ratings and made Ortiz a star overnight. Pacquiao could have selected Ortiz to fight first before Mayweather chose him. Instead, Pacquiao will be facing 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez for a third time. That’s certainly a fight not to dismiss, but it’s not the same kind of fight that Mayweather-Ortiz is. The reason is simple. Marquez isn’t a welterweight, and he’s being asked to fight Pacquiao at pretty much the full weight of the welterweight limit minus three pounds at 144 lbs.
That’s not a good weight for Marquez, as he showed in his lopsided 12 round decision loss to Mayweather in 2009. And yet here Marquez is being asked to fight Pacquiao at 144. What it does is it takes away the excitement from the fight, because it puts Marquez in a bad situation where he’s likely going to struggle because of the added weight he’ll be forced to put. And that’s going to give Pacquiao, the younger fighter, an even bigger advantage.
Pacquiao has already got the advantage of youth and hand speed working on his side against Marquez, but now he gets the weight as well. That’s just too many cards stacked in Pacquiao’s favor and it takes away the excitement for this fight. Pacquiao and his team could have met Marquez halfway at 140 lbs, which would have at least given him a better shot at winning instead of asking him to come up to 144. But the Mayweather-Ortiz is better because Ortiz is younger and isn’t starting to deteriorate like the soon to be 38-year-old Marquez. Ortiz is at the same weight as Mayweather, and there won’t be any need for catchweight for this bout.
By taking Ortiz off the table, Mayweather removes one more fighter for Pacquiao that he could have fought. Naturally, that doesn’t mean that Pacquiao won’t fight Ortiz at a later day to get sloppy seconds. We’ve already seen that Pacquiao isn’t concerned about being labeled by some boxing fans as a fighter that takes on Mayweather’s lefthovers, as a result of Pacquiao’s fights against Oscar De La Hoya, Ricky Hatton and soon to Marquez after Mayweather had already fought and beaten them all. Pacquiao can always face Ortiz after Mayweather beats him, but it might be the smartest thing for him to do. With Pacquiao facing guys like Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, Antonio Margarito and Mosley, Mayweather may have upped the ante by facing a prime Ortiz rather than a handful of fighters that are arguably not the same fighters they once were due to the effects of age and terrible beatings.
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