By Chris Williams: With his fight against unbeaten challenger less than one month away, World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) is already on target for the fight weight of 144 pounds for their catch-weight fight at 144 on November 22nd in Macao, China.
Pacquiao reportedly weighed in at 143 pounds for the fight at the 30-day weigh-in.
It’s not really all that surprising that Pacquiao is on target for the weight, because he’s a small welterweight, and he’s able to make the weight class easily. What we don’t know is how well Pacquiao will do once he moves down to 140 after this fight.
Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach has been saying that Pacquiao will have more power at 140 then he had at 147, and that he’ll start suddenly knocking everybody out once again. But that doesn’t make a lot of sense because there’s not much weight that separates the two weight classes, and Pacquiao is 35-years-old.
The way Roach is talking, he’s making ti seem like Pacquiao will be like a spring chicken, knocking guys out left and right like he was 25 instead of a fighter with close 20 years of ring wear, and nearing his 36th birthday in two months in December.
“Weight has never been an issue for Manny. But to have him make weight four weeks in advance of a fight is incredible – even for him,” said Roach. “He is so motivated for his fight with Algieri. The way Manny is training he could fight for his own AND Algieri’s title on November 22!”
Roach has been saying recently that some of Pacquiao’s sparring partners are better than Algieri. That really doesn’t mean anything, because no one has ever said that Algieri is the best fighter in the 140 pound division. But at the same time, he doesn’t need to be in order to have a good chance of beating Pacquiao, because the 35-year-old has slipped a few notches in recent years due to age.
I wouldn’t doubt that Pacquiao’s sparring partner Viktor Postol would beat Pacquiao if the two of them went at it. All Algieri needs to do is prove that he can beat Pacquiao too, and he’d just be another guy that did it.
If Pacquiao loses to Algieri, he’s going to need to think about retiring, because unless his promoter Bob Arum steps him back a level by mixing and matching against his stable fighters like Mike Alvarado and Brandon Rios, we could see Pacquiao get beaten by other guys.
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