De La Hoya: Pacquiao makes fighters lose on the scales 1st

[Kev]

Then why have weight classes at all? I believe there should be no catchweights allowed in pro boxing at all, you are following the rules of a weightclass or you aren't. If you are going to move up to fight bigger men, then that's exactly what you should be doing fighting bigger men, not fighting with an asterisk. Of course, noone's going to take a stand when a 6-7 figure payday is on the line.

Well actually I would agree. But the bigger men are already the beneficiaries of an unfair advantage having a full 24 hours from the time of the weigh in to the fight itself.

How is that fair?

Some people moaned about Manny winning a junior middleweight title at a catchweight of 150lbs, but that weigh in was the day before the fight.

Margarito actually weighed in at 165 lbs at the time of the fight.

You can't have it both ways. Under the current system biggers guys have an unfair advantage of being able to boil down to fight in a division many pounds lighter than the weight they walk around at.

Allow Manny's opponents to weigh in at the maximum weight limit. But make sure they enter the ring at that weight.

That's surely fair. Under those circumstances Manny's advantage would be even greater.

Because of this disparity catchweights are a necessary evil. All they do is level the playing field that is already biased in favour of the naturally bigger fighter.