Roach expects Pacquiao to be stronger at 140

By Rob Smith - 10/15/2014 - Comments

It’s no secret that World Boxing Organization (WBO) welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KOs) is going through an extremely long dry spell where he hasn’t knocked out an opponent for five long years since he stopped Miguel Cotto in the 12th round in their catch-weight fight in 2009.

Roach says Pacquiao will be moving down to 140 after his fight next month against Chris Algieri (20-0, 8 KOs) at the Cotai Arena, Venetian Resort, Macao, Macao S.A.R., China. The Pacquiao-Algieri fight is taking place at a catch-weight of 144 pounds rather than the full weight of 147 despite the fact that Pacquiao’s WBO title will be on the line for the fight. Roach says they intentionally did it that way.

It was obviously a move to get Pacquiao down at a slightly lower weight to see how he responds. In other words, to see if his vanishing power will suddenly reappear out of the blue. I’m not sure that it will, but that’s what Roach’s mindset is. He figures that by Pacquiao losing weight and fighting in a lower weight class, he’ll start knocking guys out left and right like he once did.

It’s an idea that might work if Pacquiao dropped down to a low enough weight class like lightweight or super featherweight, but then again it might not work. In moving down in weight, Pacquiao might wind up weaker rather than stronger.

“That’s the only reason we’re going to ‘44, that’s our choice, not theirs,” Roach said to RingTV.com. “There’s a lot of competition in the 140-pound division, a lot of them are going to 147 because they want to fight Manny for the bigger money but as soon as Manny goes to 140 all of those will come back down,” said Roach.

If Top Rank can do business with Al Haymon’s fighters then Pacquiao will have a lot of fights at 140, but if not then Pacquiao could find himself limited to facing the likes of Mikey Garcia, Terence Crawford, Ruslan Provodnikov, Jessie Vargas and Raymundo Beltran. You’ve got to put a big question mark next to Mikey’s name because it’s still unclear whether he’s going to be with Top Rank in the future.

When you take Mikey out of the equation, the rest of the names aren’t big fights. I don’t expect Al Haymon to let his fighters to fight Top Rank guys, so that means no Danny Garcia, Adrien Broner, Lucas Matthysse and Lamont Peterson. Those are all Haymon fighters.

“He’s never been a big puncher at 147,” said Roach. “I don’t think he’s lost his punch or his killer instinct; he’s just been fighting bigger, stronger guys. I think the knockouts will still start coming again at 140.”

I disagree with Roach. I think Pacquiao will be weaker at 140 compared to how he was at 147. He’s been fighting in the welterweight division for too long of a time, and if anything he’ll likely be weaker in the light welterweight division rather than stronger.