Boxing Perspective: The Welterweight Division

The Welterweight division, at the moment, looks very promising indeed with some very good fighters sitting on or around the weight and already some mouth-watering bouts lined up.

Number one pound for pound fighter in the world is Manny Pacquiao, and he currently resides in this division, although he started and won his first world title at flyweight he has moved up the weight divisions, capturing belts and beating some of the finest fighters in the world before settling in at welterweight.

He looks comfortable at this weight, unusually so as history has so often repeated itself that when a smaller fighter steps up through the weight divisions they tend to lose either speed or power or sometimes they are not as recuperative as they once were.

It is rare to see a fighter come up in weight and not lose any of their qualities. The strange thing with Pacquiao is, if anything, he has gotten better as he has gone up.

An argument could be made that the level of opponents have been easier but Pacquiao silenced those doubters with an impr... Full Boxing Article here...

I think Pac will retire this year, Shane and Mayweather may not last too long, Williams cannot be effective at welter and Cotto has left. The future does not look too bright at welter.

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Originally Posted by Master

I think Pac will retire this year, Shane and Mayweather may not last too long, Williams cannot be effective at welter and Cotto has left. The future does not look too bright at welter.

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The future is excellent at Welterweight, arguably better in overall competition than it is now. Andre Berto, Mike Jones, Saul Alvarez, Antwone Smith and Kell Brook are all amazing talents who all look capable of getting world titles. Not to mention Tim Bradley, Devon Alexander, Amir Khan and Victor Ortiz who all have star potential and the frames and talent to easily come up from 140.

What we have right now are three ATGs of whom we'll most likely see at least 2 fights between the 3 of them and they will be amazing. However, with the other guys I mentioned there's endless possibilities for fights. We're lucky the current Golden Era will not leave us with nothing to look forward to.

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Originally Posted by JazMerkin

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Master

I think Pac will retire this year, Shane and Mayweather may not last too long, Williams cannot be effective at welter and Cotto has left. The future does not look too bright at welter.

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The future is excellent at Welterweight, arguably better in overall competition than it is now. Andre Berto, Mike Jones, Saul Alvarez, Antwone Smith and Kell Brook are all amazing talents who all look capable of getting world titles. Not to mention Tim Bradley, Devon Alexander, Amir Khan and Victor Ortiz who all have star potential and the frames and talent to easily come up from 140.

What we have right now are three ATGs of whom we'll most likely see at least 2 fights between the 3 of them and they will be amazing. However, with the other guys I mentioned there's endless possibilities for fights. We're lucky the current Golden Era will not leave us with nothing to look forward to.

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This

Welterweight remains the one of if not THE deepest talent pools in boxing, even without Mosley/Mayweather/Pac. I'd say Featherweight is currently the only real contender against that claim. The thing that makes welterweight so strong is the constant inflow of talent at all ages, and it's a weight that pretty much all nations have strong representation in.

Manny Pacquiao is not pound for pound number 1.