MAYWEATHER - 151 LBS vs COTTO - 154 LBS

When the smoke cleared, the main-eventers easily made weight but one of the boxers involved in the supporting main event came in a tad over the limit.

Miguel Cotto (37-2-0,30 KO) of Caguas, Puerto Rico made the super welterweight limit of 154 pounds without any problem at all.

Floyd Mayweather (42-0-0,26 KO) of Grand Rapids, Michigan surprisingly came in 3 pounds under the contract limit. He was a sizzling 151 pounder.
 
Moments ago inside of the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, the weigh-in took place for this weekend’s ‘Ring Kings’ pay-per-view blockbuster.

In the evening’s main event, Miguel Cotto defends his WBA junior middleweight crown against Floyd Mayweather Jr. Cotto came in exactly at the limit of 154 pounds while Mayweather, who is moving up for this fight, came in at 151 pounds.

In the evening’s co-feature, Saul Alvarez came in at 154 pounds in advance of his WBC junior middleweight title defense against Shane Mosley, who was a half a pound over at 154.5 pounds. Mosley would later come back to make the weight and the bout is a go for tomorrow night.

It maybe noted that this is the heaviest that Mayweather ever was in any weigh-in he has had in his past fights.

Mayweather and Cotto are fighting for the WBA vacant Super welterweight title and a minor belt, the WBC Diamond Super welterweight title.

In the supporting main event, a fight that is for the WBC Super welterweight crown, world champion Canelo Alvarez (39-0-1, 29KO) of Guadalajara, Mexico hit the scales at exactly 154 lbs.

His challenger, former world champion Sugar Shane Mosley (46-7-1, 39 KO) of Pomona, California however was half a pound over the contract limit of 154 lbs.

Mosley was given two hours to shed the excess baggage and without doubt, he will make it the second time around as half a pound is really nothing to lose for professional boxers like him.

Will the weight be an issue tomorrow? Let us just wait and see.

In the other supporting bouts, Las Vegas rising star, Jessie Vargas (18-0-0, 9KO) came in at 146 lbs while his opponent veteran Steve Forbes, (35-10-0, 11KO) also from Las Vegas was a 146.5 lbs.

Carlos Quintana (28-3-0, 22KO) of Moca, Puerto Rico hit the scales at 154 lbas and his opponent DeAndre Latrimore (23-3-0, 17 KO) of Las Vegas was 154.5 lbs.

Most of the talk in the media room centered around Mosley. The veteran according to a reliable source is being paid $650,000 for the fight, indeed a neat sum that will go towards his retirement. Champion Alvarez is on the other hand getting a whooping $1.2 million.

Who's PPV King, Pacman or Floyd?

The superfight is far from happening, and in fact it may never happen at all. But in the next couple of months they will be pitted against each other once more.

It will be a big battle over pay-per-view numbers when Mayweather takes on Miguel Cotto on May 5, and Pacquiao collides with Tim Bradley on June 9.

Two great fights in a span of five weeks, and again a lot of people will be waiting for the numbers to come in once they’re through with their fights.

It will be the question of who the sport’s biggest draw is. Mayweather claims he’s the greatest of them all, and Pacquiao said he couldn’t care less.

“I even don’t think of myself as a great boxer. I let the people say how good I am as a fighter,” said Pacquiao.

Mayweather said he will be Mayweather even if he doesn’t fight the Filipino superstar. Pacquiao said he’s the same without mentioning the name of the undefeated American.

Over recent years, Pacquiao has made pay-per-view his bread and butter, with close to eight million buys combined in his last seven fights.

Pacquiao hit over a million buys against Oscar dela Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito, Shane Mosley and Juan Manuel Marquez, which did close to 1.4 million last year.

“That takes him to the super elite status and in the annals of pay-per-view history,” said the HBO senior vice president Mark Taffet of Pacquiao.

Mayweather still shares the pay-per-view record of 2.4 million buys in his fight against Dela Hoya in 2007 but since he came out of retirement hasn’t gone over 1.25 (against Victor Ortiz).

Insiders say Mayweather vs Cotto is easier to sell than Pacquiao vs Bradley, just one of the great fighters but whose name doesn’t really ring a bell outside the United States.

Pacquiao is done with Cotto, with boxing’s only eight-division champion stopping the heavy-handed Puerto Rican inside 12 rounds.

Many thought it was the end of the line for Cotto until he bounced back with a string of victories, including a big one against Antonio Margarito last December.

It earned Cotto the right to fight Mayweather who needed Cotto as his next opponent more than Pacquiao needed Cotto for a rematch.

Mayweather will do everything to go over a million pay-per-view buys against Cotto, and hope that Pacquiao fails to draw the number against Bradley.

If that happens, then Mayweather can keep his head up, and say he’s the biggest star out there, again just enough for him to demand a bigger share of the purse for a possible fight with Pacquiao.

If Mayweather beats Cotto, he also becomes the junior-middleweight champion, and he’d surely ask Pacquiao to climb the ladder and challenge him at 154 lb.