Quote Originally Posted by SweetPea
Quote Originally Posted by lance Uppercut
Read through Merchant's argument; it doesn't seem that ridiculous:

"First, once upon a time, it wasn't unusual for outstanding champions to fight way over their best weight to make money," Merchant said.

Merchant, who has forgotten more boxing than most of us know, reeled off a number of examples to support his fantasy:

• Sugar Ray Robinson, the generally recognized No.1 pound-for-pound fighter in history, was the welterweight and middleweight champion, who moved up for a shot at light heavyweight champ Joey Maxim in 1952 and was stopped in the 14th round of a fight Robinson had dominated until succumbing to heat exhaustion.

• Henry Armstrong, the pound-for-pound legend who simultaneously held the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight championships in 1938, challenged Caferino Garcia for the middleweight title in 1940 and got a draw.

• England's Ted "Kid" Lewis, who fought from flyweight all the way to heavyweight, was at his best at welterweight, where he had two reigns as champion between 1915 and 1919. But that didn't stop Lewis from challenging Georges Carpentier for the light heavyweight title in 1922 (and getting knocked out in the first round).

• Mickey Walker, a Hall of Famer who was welterweight champ and middleweight champ in the 1920s, twice challenged for the light heavyweight title. He also fought future heavyweight champ Jack Sharkey to a draw, despite being outweighed by 29 pounds.

For more recent examples, Merchant also had ammunition:

• Roy Jones Jr., who won titles at middleweight and super middleweight and was the reigning light heavyweight champion when he moved up to heavyweight for a shot at John Ruiz's alphabet title in 2003. Jones won it in dominant fashion.

• Bernard Hopkins, who after his dominant 20-defense middleweight title reign ended against Jermain Taylor, jumped up 15 pounds and easily won the light heavyweight title from Antonio Tarver last year.
But these examples really mean nothing.
Robinson and Armstrong... not only did they fight a long time ago, but they were 2 of the 4 best fighters ever. They could do things that other fighters can't do.

Lewis and Walker, that happened over 80 or 90 years ago.

Jones was able to move up because he was a lightning quick fighter who could AVOID CONTACT for 12 rounds. If Jones had gone toe-to-toe with a heavyweight, he would have gotten beaten. But he had the ability to make a guy miss for 12 rounds. This is the exact opposite of how Pacquiao fights. Pac is a straight ahead high-contact fighter.

Hopkins only went up from middle to light heavy, which is not a huge move, and Hopkins was always very drawn at 160, he easily could have moved to 175 years earlier. Hopkins didn't even look that much smaller when he fought Tarver. And again, Hopkins was a great defensive fighter who could avoid blows. Manny does not fight like this.
SweetPea,dude,your posts are awesome. CC. Merchant makes good points but Manny only fights one way and that would not make for a great fight v Oscar who must have to go through ALOT OF WORK to get down to 147 now!