This division hasn't felt relevent for a while now. People care more about other weight classes like 160, 168, 175.
That was the problem with having Manny and Floyd at 147. All the top contenders didn't want to fight each other because it could mess up their chance to get a fight from one of the rainmakers. Now that they are gone or about to be, the best might actually start fighting the best, to hammer out who actually deserves that mighty acclaim. Khan, Bradley, Thurman, Brook, and soon Crawford should figure things out at 147 before the next crop of young fighters comes through. We might actually get some decent fights for a change. There might be a lull between good eras, like when Leonard and Hearns moved out of welterweight and Honeyghan, Starling, and Curry took over. They held on for a while, but then we got guys like Trinidad and Whitaker again.
NO body cared when mayweather was fighting berto they had to pay fans to get in the arena and even then loads of seats were empty
All they have to do is fight each other. Pacquiao Brook Thurman Porter Garcia Khan Bradley -those are the guys who really matter right now. -the rest of these guys are either on the way up (Spence) or on the way out (Peterson and Alexander). A few have peaked and are as good as they are going to get (Algieri).A few have questions to answer (Vargas). Chaves Vargas Spence Ali Algieri Guerrero Peterson Garcia Martinez Alexander Berto Ortiz
Might be a controversial opinion, but I think in terms of pure ability, Floyd is one of the best to ever lace em up.