Roach says "Manny will fight shane at 142 not 147"

[Rantcatrat]

its the same thing...(1) Floyd isnt naturally 147 either, he moved up and beat the lineal champs at 147..

(2) ricky hatton moved up to challenge floyd for his p4p belt which is what all the smaller fighters are really fighting over, and since floyd is pound for pound the best in the sport anyone that wants to fight him should go to 147...this is like floyd challenging pavlik for the belt then demanding that he meet him at 155...

PACMAN fought oscar who was at 154 at WW...if (3) he can fight a LMW then he can fight WWs its that simple..other than that ,the catch weight crap is just the same as roy jones demanding 100million to fight lennox lewis...just another way to get out of the fight...

and if cotto drops to 140 to fight PACMAN then it will be because arum and cottos people talked him into accepting the high risk/ high reward fight..besides cotto isn as old as PBF or SHANE..esp shane who hasn't been that small in over 10years...cotto might be able to handle the weight loss better than the older two fighters..which is probably why roach demands that cotto drops the most weight out of the three...(4) its the same as pricing yourself out....floyd might consider the catchweight because he's arrongant enough to do it..but shane and cotto would only be doing it for the mega bucks...

Response is numbered

1. Floyd isn't a natural 147? Why then has he fought at or above 145 since 2005? And why has he required all his most recent fights against smaller opponents to be at that weight? If he was as effective at 140, why wouldn't he fight at that weight? And just to keep it in perspective, the lineal champion you refer to was big, bad...Carlos Baldomir. He hasn't fought one other champion at 147. Don't kid yourself - not one!
2. You make the point for why Hatton or another smaller fighter would want to move up to fight Floyd, and you are right. But, you don't respond to why Floyd would want to fight them when he has a deep crop of top tier welterweights to fight. He is a welterweight - they are junior welterweights and lightweights. (Not that it is a great point anyway, but Pacquiao went to Hatton's natural weight to fight him when he was p4p #1)
3. Pacquiao fought ODLH at 147 because he is too small to fight a natural lmw. He is 5'6! The weight was an attempt at evening the playing field because he couldn't beat a natural light middleweight. But if you are going to make that argument, it must apply to Floyd too, right? If he fought ODLH at 154, he can fight lmw's. Instead, Floyd, supposedly the p4p best in the world, has fight junior welterweights and lightweights.
4. There are two ways to look at it and your way - that using your leverage as p4p #1 to make heavier boxers come to you is pricing yourself out - is one way. I don't disagree. The other way to look at it is that Pacquiao wants to fight Shane and Cotto, but they are too big for him at 147 and that fighting at 142 evens the playing field. One thing that is certain is that Marquez fighting Floyd at 147 is NOT an even playing field.

Shane isn't making 142, at least not a healthy Shane. Then again, fighting true elite welterweights may be too much of a challenge for Pacquiao. We are talking about a guy who started fighting at 108. Maybe he should stick to fighting junior welterweights and lightweights. There are undoubtedly some good fights in those weight classes. I don't necessarily disagree with that. One thing I agree with is that fighting Shane at 142 is not winning a title in a 7th weight class. No way.

dude those were some excellent points throughout, but the reason PBF would accept the smaller men challenging him for his WW and P4P titles are simple...Hatton was a huge draw with a huge fan base worldwide those greenbacks plus hatton was undefeated. I mean what guy wouldn't fight a smaller man knowing it would big a huge payday if the little guy doesn't have a problem..And marquez is the one who called out PBF, so if you want to fight him go to his weight. To me its like when roy wanted to fight lennox for huge money..it would have been clear as day that he really didn't want to fight had he demanded that Lennox come down to cruiser to face him then get credit for a win over a HW. People would have seen right through that so he instead demanded 100million. Same thing that pac is doing except 100million is silly so they say you come to this weight, and you to that weight...

The red highlight is for the point that if he can fight oscar at 147, why not shane or cotto? That doesn't make sense, only if and i think this is clear now, which is that roach knows that would make both of them ineffective enough to give manny the win. I still think shane would probably beat him at 142, but its not worth the 38 year old risk of looking that old on the wrong night.

One thing we can agree upon is that Roach is obviously looking to minimize the great size disparity between Pacquiao and any of the potential opponents. But, to a certain extent, that is fair. They all have a big size advantage over Pacquiao and that would be the difference in the fights. A good big man beats a good little most of the time.

Why Oscar at 147, but not Mosely at 154? One reason may be that Roach wanted the Oscar fight badly because there wasn't another pay day in boxing as big as Oscar at the moment. Remember at the time, Floyd was retired. He knew 154 was much too big for Pacquiao and although 147 was too big for Pacquiao, he was willing to take the risk so that Pacquiao would get the pay day. Of course, it was a calculated risk, and he assumed correctly, that Oscar wouldn't be the same fighter at 147 that he was at 154. However, I don't think anyone could have predicted Oscar's performance, which is why almost everyone picked Oscar to beat Manny. In sum, Roach never liked 147 as a weight tehn and he doesn't like it now, but he was willing to take the risk in jump to get a pay day from Oscar.

It is somewhat logical if you think about it. Roach was willing to fight Hatton at 140 even though Hatton was the bigger man in that fight and at his natural weight. He didn't need Hatton to be weight drained to fight Pacquiao. But, after Oscar, Hatton was the next biggest pay day.

Out of all the fighters out there currently, who is the next biggest pay day? Logically, if Marquez beats Mayweather, that should be Manny's next fight. That ain't happening, however. In my opinion, there aren't any other junior welterweights or light weights who are as big as Cotto or Mosely or Mayweather. But, I don't think fighting them at 147 makes sense. Cotto is willing to fight Manny at 144 - Miguel Cotto Willing To Face Pacquiao at 144-Pounds - Boxing News.