You appear to have some maturity and/or stability issues. Competitive advantage is important. Training hard and keeping yourself in shape also is an example of "stacking things in your favour". That's the idea. By referring to it as "bully," you are characterizing that advantage as a negative. It doesn't make any sense. All things equal, a fighter absolutely should fight at his lowest comfortable weight. It doesn't diminish his accomplishments just because he is taller or stronger for the weight. Some people are able to get away with more cutting, but that's also a reflection of genetics and preparation. And *some* of the guys y'all accuse of being weight bullies aren't even rehydrating that much.
Linares has been a joy to watch over the years but is past his best Ill be cheering him on against a rather boring fighter in Haney
Look it's not really debatable and you're in effect justifying fighters conning the public beating guys that aren't their own size. It's almost as if you want promoters/boxers to con you, quite pathetic really. And it absolute diminishes the weight bully's achievement. I think you have minimal understanding of the impact of weight and size in a fight. You're also underestimating the extent of rehydration, some of these guys are weighing at least 10lbs more than their opponent fight night and whether you like it or not that is a significant advantage. If you think a boxer beating up on smaller weaker boxers is impressive and deserves credit then you're only fooling yourself. The boxer being able to make weight does not take away from that fact. If anything you're entire understanding is immature/naive.
Haney looks the goods but he needs to be special on the night because as others have stated, Linares is past his sell by date.
Linares might have one last quality performance in him but he's too shop worn now to start backing him.. he's 35 now, that's OLD for most LWs.. he hasn't fought in 15 months either.. he was quality in his day but he'll be used as a name to build the younger fighters up now.
I make a living designing ways to make business processes more efficient. One of the top ways to hurt efficiency levels is wasting time and energy making emotional judgement calls on a team member you may not be fond of. You're being inefficient by disliking someone you don't know on a personal level, reroute that energy into something positive my brother.