By Lem Satterfield
WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao has come under fire in the last few days. Most of the negative press was related to a potential third fight with Juan Manuel Marquez. The Mexican lightweight champion was requesting a catch-weight for a third meeting with Pacquiao. The Filipino fighter's team quickly rejected his request and advised Marquez that any potentional fight with Pacquiao would have to take place at the full welterweight limit of 147-pounds. The refusal didn't sit well with a number of people, because Pacquiao himself has used catch-weights in several of his biggest fights.
Michael Koncz, the adviser of Pacquiao, explains that catch-weights were used because Pacquiao is so much smaller than most of his recent opponents. With respect to Marquez, Koncz doesn't see him as being in any position to manuever the terms against Pacquiao. The days of going up in weight are over. Pacquiao flirted with a rise to 150-pounds for a November junior middleweight fight with Antonio Margarito. Although he easily dominated the action, Margarito badly hurt him with a bodyshot in the sixth round.
"No. 1, we moved up a number of different weight divisions, and that's where we utilized catch weights as we did with Margarito. We knew that Margarito was going to come in bigger, and that's where we used catch weights. That's part of negotiations," Koncz said.
"We used it against Cotto and that's not something that killed Cotto because I knew he would make the weight because I had had discussions with [Cotto's adviser] Brian. They weren't happy about it, but they were willing to do it," Koncz said. They were willing to sacrifice to make the fight, and, again, that's part of negotiations. Manny's in command, Manny's general, and he should be able to impose realistic conditions on opponents who want to benefit financially from his popularity."
"Again, the same thing with Margarito. I could have asked for 147 or even 146, and that would have made Margarito suffer traumatically. But we didn't do that. But we're not fighting at 150 any more. That is too dangerous for Manny to have that kind of weight discrepancy and that kind of a difference on fight night."