By Chris Williams: It looks like Manny Pacquiao’s days of fighting at catch-weights aren’t quite through yet, as his trainer Freddie Roach is talking about wanting a catch-weight of 150 lbs. for a fight between Pacquiao and Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in 2015. Roach wants Canelo to melt down from 154 to 150 in order to give Pacquiao a handicap for the fight even though Canelo isn’t making 154 anymore.
Canelo had the weight raised to 155 for his fight against Alfredo Angulo last March, and now Canelo is fighting WBA junior middleweight champion Erislandy Lara at 155 for their fight on July 12th. It’s pretty clear that the 23-year-old Canelo’s days of making 154 are probably behind him, and it’s unthinkable to imagine Canelo getting down to 150 in order to accommodate Pacquiao with a weight handicap so that he can be competitive.
“At the right weight, we’ll [Pacquiao] fight him,” Roach said to the Boxing Channel. “I think the biggest he [Pacquiao] can fight is 150…I know [Canelo] came down to 152 for Mayweather…He’s a much bigger guy than Manny. If we can get a catch-weight that is fair to both of them, I think it would be a good fight.”
I had a feeling that Roach would come out of the woodwork sooner or later with the catch-weight handicap business, and no I don’t see it as fair for Canelo or for any fighter to have to drain themselves in order to fight a guy that doesn’t fight in their weight class. The welterweight division is only 7 pounds lighter than the 154 lb. division so it’s not as if Pacquiao needs Canelo to drain down to meet him halfway. If Pacquiao wants to fight a junior middleweight, then he should be willing to fight at the full weight limit for the junior middleweight division instead of having a catch-weight handicap working the fight.
The thing with the catch-weight is that Canelo will likely be so weak that he’ll lose the fight just from the loss of weight making him too weak to fight properly.
I would be surprised if Canelo agrees to any kind of catch-weight for a Pacquiao fight. He needs to see what happened to the fighters that have dropped weight in order to fight Pacquiao in the past. They’ve always lost and they’ve always looked weak. Canelo is a star on the rise and he hardly needs to be caving in to pressure from Pacquiao’s team in the future to give him a handicap for a fight.
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