By Manuel Perez: Recently, Manny Pacquiao has picked up the tendency to fight opponents out of their weight class, making Oscar De La Hoya have to move down to 147 in order to fight him. This resulted in De La Hoya having to diet drastically to make weight, leaving weak and only a shell of his former self. Pacquiao then goes out and beats Oscar badly, leaving the perception with the boxing public that Pacquiao beat a prime De La Hoya and not a fighter that had to basically diet down to a weight that he hadn’t fought in years.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t see how Pacquiao can be given any kind of pound for pound attention when Manny isn’t able to meet De La Hoya at his normal weight. Roach says that he’s just looking out for his fighter by making Pacquiao’s bigger opponents have to come down to unrealistic weight requirements in order to fight Pacquiao.
Now, Roach is trying to duplicate this with fights against Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley, letting them know that if they want to fight Pacquiao then they’ll have to strip down to a skinny, weight drained 142 to make it happen. It seems to me that his is nothing more than cherry picking at the finest.
Pacquiao walks around at 148, and if he can’t fight meet a fighter like Mosley or Cotto, both of whom fight at 147, at the welterweight limit, then they should just scrap the idea altogether and let Pacquiao continue to fight the David Diaz’s of the world. Fair is fair.
There’s no victory over an opponent that is forced to strip off muscle in order to make a fight happen, because the version of the fighter that Pacquiao ends up fighting is a weak, weight drained version and not a prime one.
If you don’t believe me, try getting in really good shape and then having to take off five pounds of muscle to take a fight. Yes, you could do it but you’d be weaker than you were before you started and you’d be in trouble against a fighter that is used to fighting at the smaller weight.
What gets me is that Roach is okay with Pacquiao fighting De La Hoya at 147, but he’s not okay with Pacquiao fighting Mosley or Cotto at the same weight. Obviously, Roach knows that he needs them both to be as weak as possible for Pacquiao to beat them.
That’s the real key, they have to be weak otherwise they’ll wipe the deck with Pacquiao and Roach probably knows this. That’s why any victories that Pacquiao would get over either one of them have to be looked at in the larger picture of what they were forced to do in order to get a fight with Pacquiao in the first place.
It’s like saying, ‘hey, if you want to fight my guy you have to be extra weight otherwise the fights’ not going to happen.’ If that’s the case, then what is it will all this pound for pound stuff? You can’t reward a fighter that makes other fighters have to be weak before they fight you, because that isn’t what the sport is all about. It’s about fairness, not handicapping your opponent so much that you beat them.
If Pacquiao needs handicaps to win his fights, then he needs to go back down and fight someone his own size. I suppose then they’d dream up some other handicap to find to leave them at a disadvantage, too.
i think the reason for the needed handicap is pretty obvious. where do they find these writers? lol.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t see how Pacquiao can be given any kind of pound for pound attention when Manny isn’t able to meet De La Hoya at his normal weight. Roach says that he’s just looking out for his fighter by making Pacquiao’s bigger opponents have to come down to unrealistic weight requirements in order to fight Pacquiao.
Now, Roach is trying to duplicate this with fights against Miguel Cotto and Shane Mosley, letting them know that if they want to fight Pacquiao then they’ll have to strip down to a skinny, weight drained 142 to make it happen. It seems to me that his is nothing more than cherry picking at the finest.
Pacquiao walks around at 148, and if he can’t fight meet a fighter like Mosley or Cotto, both of whom fight at 147, at the welterweight limit, then they should just scrap the idea altogether and let Pacquiao continue to fight the David Diaz’s of the world. Fair is fair.
There’s no victory over an opponent that is forced to strip off muscle in order to make a fight happen, because the version of the fighter that Pacquiao ends up fighting is a weak, weight drained version and not a prime one.
If you don’t believe me, try getting in really good shape and then having to take off five pounds of muscle to take a fight. Yes, you could do it but you’d be weaker than you were before you started and you’d be in trouble against a fighter that is used to fighting at the smaller weight.
What gets me is that Roach is okay with Pacquiao fighting De La Hoya at 147, but he’s not okay with Pacquiao fighting Mosley or Cotto at the same weight. Obviously, Roach knows that he needs them both to be as weak as possible for Pacquiao to beat them.
That’s the real key, they have to be weak otherwise they’ll wipe the deck with Pacquiao and Roach probably knows this. That’s why any victories that Pacquiao would get over either one of them have to be looked at in the larger picture of what they were forced to do in order to get a fight with Pacquiao in the first place.
It’s like saying, ‘hey, if you want to fight my guy you have to be extra weight otherwise the fights’ not going to happen.’ If that’s the case, then what is it will all this pound for pound stuff? You can’t reward a fighter that makes other fighters have to be weak before they fight you, because that isn’t what the sport is all about. It’s about fairness, not handicapping your opponent so much that you beat them.
If Pacquiao needs handicaps to win his fights, then he needs to go back down and fight someone his own size. I suppose then they’d dream up some other handicap to find to leave them at a disadvantage, too.
i think the reason for the needed handicap is pretty obvious. where do they find these writers? lol.
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