I'm going to ask Pacquiao to move down to 140lbs

Trainer Freddie Roach says he’s going to ask his fighter Manny Pacquiao (56-5-2, 38 KO’s) to move down to 140 in order to see if he can get his missing knockout power back. Pacquiao hasn’t knocked out an opponent in the past five years in fighting in the 147lb division, and Roach believes the knockout drought is caused by a combination of Pacquiao fighting in the wrong division that his body wasn’t intended to be fighting in, and due to his advancing age.
 
Roach feels that the 35-year-old Pacquiao will do much better at light welterweight where he previously knocked out Ricky Hatton in 2009. The only fighters that Pacquiao has knocked out in the welterweight division were Miguel Cotto and a weight-drained Oscar De La Hoya, who was at the very end of his career when he took that fight.
 
 
“Manny Pacquiao – he’s not a great puncher at 147 like everyone thinks,” Roach said to maxboxing. “Everyone says he’s not getting the knockouts like with Hatton and those knockouts were at 135 and 140. I’m going to ask him if we can fight at 140 because that’s a better weight for him. He has no trouble making 140…he’s fighting these bigger, stronger guys. Bradley was at least 160 going into that ring.”
 
Roach might want to run this by Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum, because I have a feeling that he’s not going to like the idea of Pacquiao moving down to 140, where Arum is thin in terms of having big name fighters in his stable. By having Pacquiao stay at 147, Arum can match him in another pot of gold fight against Juan Manuel Marquez. But if Pacquiao moves back down to 140, Arum’s options for him consist of Jessie Vargas, Khabib Allakhverdiev, Brandon Rios and Ruslan Provodnikov. None of those guys would likely bring in more than 450, 000 to 500,000 pay-per-view buys at best. I see Arum vetoing Roach’s idea of having Pacquiao move down to the light welterweight or lightweight divisions to try and extend his career.
 
I doubt seriously that Arum would match Pacquiao with Provodnikov because my understanding is that he’s only under contract with Top Rank for 1 more fight. Provodnikov fights for Banner Promotions. Arum isn’t likely going to make that fight because then Provodnikov would be getting popular with his help, but then would be going back to Banner to resume his career after likely giving Pacquiao a lot of problems. So that fight is probably never going to happen. What we’re looking at then is Pacquiao fighting Vargas, Allakhverdiev and Rios. Those fights aren’t going to get anyone excited.
 
If Pacquiao stays at 147, then Arum can get the 5th fight for him against Marquez, and then match him back up with Bradley another 2-3 times. Arum also can throw in the mix Mike Alvarado. That’s not a great fight, but Arum promotes Alvarado, so he’ll likely get his turn against Pacquiao in the near future regardless of how things go with his May 17th fight against Marquez.
 
Pacquiao would be better off fighting at 140 or 135. Fighting 135, would be the best option for Pacquiao, because his power would be more pronounced and he could face guys like Yuriorkis Gamboa, Terence Crawford, Ray Beltran, Ricky Burns, Miguel Vazquez, and Richard Abril. Those would be good fights for Pacquiao, and it might rejuvenate his career by making him more exciting due to his increase in speed due to him being lighter.

Source: boxingnews24.com

Sounds like transparent attempt to convince Mayweather that Manny is a spent force at WW to lure him into a fight.

As attempts to convince people of something, it's a pi$$ poor effort

Sounds like transparant way of avoiding mayweather at WW.

As he attempts to convince people of something else, it a pi$$ poor effort.

Nah, Manny needs the dough and to be honest if it's his last fight he'll be happy to take an ass-whuppin' for the biggest pay day of his career knowing that the vast majority of people expect him to lose anyway

It's true though, for all Pacquiao fabled power at 147 he only has 2 stoppages, one of which was the corpse of De La Hoya. Cotto was mighty impressive but it wasn't a one punch KO, it was the accumulation of fast punches that did cotto in

The problem for pacquiao is that the big names are at 147 and always have been, those at 140 end up moving up instead of the welters moving down

Pacquiao doesn't throw as much power into his punches now a days and relies more on quick scoring flurries so I think the days of him stopping opponents are gone!!!

Is Pacquiao moving back down in weight really going to make that much of a difference to his punching power? It's only two years ago that Brandon Rios was a lightweight and he just went the distance with Pacquiao. Tim Bradley was a light welter a couple of years ago and twice he's gone the distance with Pacquiao.

This title implies that Hampo is going to ask Pacquiao himself.

Already sent the email buddy

I think for his career it would be good to go back and reclaim another world title and defend it 1-2 times against fresh names rather than familiar opponents I.e. Bradley and JMM.

I would have 2-3 fights then retire. Golden Boy have the bigger names between 140-147 although I hear his Top Rank contract is up this year possibly have one more fight then 2 more as a free agent and get some retirement funds as his leeches will need plenty.

It sounds like Roach is just trying to take the pressure off Pacquiao to deliver knock outs regularly. Or perhaps to some heat off of himself now that Ariza is gone and people are questioning if Pacquiaos success was down to him more than Roach.

Why does manny have to fight at 147? He earned 20 million for fighting Bradley at 147, if he had have asked Bradley to fight at 140, wearing a pink tutu, Bradley would have done it (for his $6 million).

The winner of Alvarado v Marquez is meant to be up next. As long as manny is earning 20 million +, he makes the demands. His only reason to fight at 147 should be to fight mayweather, and as that fight won't be happening, he may as well demand that anyone who wants multiple millions to fight him meet him at the weight of his choice.

If he starts ko'ing again, it would do his ppv status wonders. I'm all for it, he's a very small welter.

Bad idea to drain the body at Manny's age....Manny is used to 147...He's just beat the p4p number 3.....Silly to mess about now....

Let's hope we don't see another Marquez fight....Looking shopworn old Jmm..and when Manny wins despite being 4-1/3-2 down he'll claim he's finished it once and for all...

Brook-Manny would be nice.....in a stadium over here...

Atila wrote:Is Pacquiao moving back down in weight really going to make that much of a difference to his punching power? It's only two years ago that Brandon Rios was a lightweight and he just went the distance with Pacquiao. Tim Bradley was a light welter a couple of years ago and twice he's gone the distance with Pacquiao.

Hard to say Atila, but you picked two guys who've never been stopped by anyone. Rios' key attribute is his chin, though Bradley was in big trouble against prov.

I think manny's lost his speed, which may have taken an edge off his power... And perhaps more importantly, an edge off his ability to land the power shots.