Has there ever been a fighter who's team have used Catchweights and weight drain...

to their advantage as well as Team Pacquiao has?

Morales 2 (weight drained, failed to make 133 lbs catchweight in his previous fight with Zahir Raheem and came in at 134lbs but the 2nd meeting between the two (Pac Morales) takes place at 130lbs how much blame could be put on team Pacquiao? since it was the first time not a lot)

Morales 3 (Team Pacquiao refuses to have the fight take place at 135lbs, fight happens at 130lbs and Zombie Morales is blown out in 3 rounds)

ODL (Oscar fights at 147lbs for the first time since 2001 and is brutally forced to quit)

Miguel Cotto (despite fighting for the WW title, the fight takes place at 145lbs not that it would have made much of a difference)

Shane Mosley approaches Freddie Roach asking for a fight with Pacquiao, Roach asks Mosley if he can make 142lbs atschatsch

Skip to Antonio Margarito (another case where 154lbs title is being contested at a catchweight...this time at 150lbs, end result would have been the same even if Margarito weighed in at 160lbs)

JMM (despite Pacquiao comfortably being able to make 140lbs the fight takes place at 144lbs the aim being to drag JMM up soo high he becomes ineffective, plan fails and Pacquiao's weaknesses are exposed yet again.)

Every instance of a catchweight fight is backed up by facts (Cotto 145lbs, Margarito 150lbs, JMM 144lbs) and every instance of severe weight drain (Morales 2, 3 and ODL) can be verified by the facts.

So in total we have 6 fights in total where either weight drain played a big role or a catchweight has been placed to gain an advantage, now obviously some of these can't be blamed on team Pacquiao IMO and these are Pac Morales 2 and the Pac Oscar fight but the rest were no doubt calculated maneuvers aimed at getting a substantial advantage over the opponent.

But back to my original question have there ever been anymore elite level world class fighters who've used these type of tactics in so many different fights?

 

Agreed for the most part, he thought he could get one last big win then retire but instead his calculations were horribly off and he got one last ass kicking and was forced to retire.

 

My 'he could have weighed 160lbs' was a reference to the official weigh in, as he could have came in at the MW limit and it wouldn't have made a difference.

 

That's a good shout for ONE instance.

 

In retrospect the 145lbs thing takes just a little bit of shine off the win because there's no doubt he would have blown away any version of Cotto from 140-154lbs also the Margarito fight is another one but it's a little different since Margarito is huge and though now looking back at it one could say Pac would have beaten a 154lbs Marg, back then it was different and a lot of people thought it may have been a step too far even at 150lbs.

 

I made mention of them in particular because he would have won against a 147lb Cotto and a 154lb Margarito and because both were title fights and it takes some shine off his achievements to know two of his historical 8 titles were won at a catchweight.