By Chris Williams: Sometimes when a fighter is stubborn about being willing to negotiate small issues like weight, they end up shooting themselves in the foot by missing out fights that would bring them many more millions.
A prime example of that is WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, who refused to agree to Miguel Cotto’s request for a 150 pound catchweight for a rematch with the Filipino star. Pacquiao wanted no part of fighting over 147, even though it was only a pitiful three pounds and he wouldn’t necessarily need to gain the weight. He would have just been giving Cotto more room to safely make it down to his weight without weakening himself completely in the process of taking off weight.
But Pacquiao refused to give Cotto the tiny catchweight and Cotto wasn’t about to drain himself for a second time to fight Pacquiao after having already done that in their previous fight in 2009 when he fought Pacquiao at 145.
As such, this opened up the opportunity for Floyd Mayweather Jr. to move in and agree to whatever weight that Cotto wanted for the fight for Cotto’s WBA junior middleweight title; Mayweather didn’t care about if he had to come in at the full weight for the junior middleweight division, because Mayweather Jr. doesn’t like catchweights and prefers to man up and fight at the full weight for whatever division he fights in.
Mayweather Jr. didn’t want a handicap catchweight to fight Cotto on May 5th. He’ll do it at the full weight and look to take the title off of Cotto’s hands without a crutch. Mayweather will be looking to capture another division world title and feels this fight will help his legacy. He’s right.
Cotto is a great fight and may be the biggest of 2012, as Pacquiao doesn’t have any very many good options to compete with Mayweather Jr. and Pacquiao’s reluctance to fight bigger guys at catchweights over 150 will hurt him because he won’t be able to fight Cotto again nor will he be able to fight Sergio Martinez, who Mayweather Jr. is already eying.
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