By Michael Collins: Floyd Mayweather Jr. agreed to fight WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto at the full 154 pounds on May 5th to try and capture his tile. When asked why he didn’t try and get a catchweight handicap like Manny Pacquiao has sometimes used against fighters to get an edge, Mayweather said “I can’t fight a guy that isn’t comfortable. I don’t get anything from that. I want them to be at their best.”
Pacquiao wanted to fight Cotto for a second time but was unwilling to fight above 147 to make it happen. He didn’t want to fight three pounds over the weight limit at 150 even. In contrast, Mayweather had no problems fighting Cotto at the full 154 pounds for this fight. Like Pacquiao, Mayweather is also a welterweight but he feels his skills will bring him to victory over a heavier Cotto and he’s not worried about facing a guy that might be 10-15 pounds heavier than him on May 5th.
Mayweather Jr. will use his speed and boxing skills to find a way to win. But it does make Pacquiao look kind of bad because Mayweather isn’t afraid to fight the best fighters at their weight class and doesn’t ask them to drain all the way down to his weight in order to fight him.
Mayweather couldn’t feel good about himself if he won a fight like that, and I guess he probably wouldn’t feel too good about Pacquiao’s catchweight fights and his two titles he won using catchweights that benefited him. When Pacquiao fought for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title against Antonio Margarito in November 2010, Pacquiao had a 150 catchweight for that fight instead of allowing Margarito to fight at the full 154 pound limit. The World Boxing Council was okay with the catchweight handicap for Pacquiao and he was able to win the fight over Margarito.