Welterweight Supremecy

These days it seems the welterweight division is the only reason mainstream fans are watching boxing. Manny Pacquiao, although not a true welterweight, has been fighting in and around the welterweight division recently and drawing huge numbers. Floyd Mayweather was doing the same while campaigning as a welterweight before he retired and now that he is back we can expect his fight against Juan Manuel Marquez to be huge. Oscar De La Hoya was the biggest draw in boxing before he retired and he fought most of his career around the welterweight division. Pacquiao, De La Hoya and Mayweather are the three biggest boxing stars of the last decade and all have fought at welterweight. In addition to those three, Shane Mosley and Miguel Cotto have been very popular in their fights at welterweight. Ricky Hatton has also campaigned at the weight division to huge fan responses while maintaining his base at junior welterweight. There is something about that weight division that draws a lot of attention from fans. I suspect a lot of it was due to the attraction of Oscar De La Hoya who pulled in the likes of Pacquiao and Mayweather to the weight category. But the appeal seems to go beyond De La Hoya as the division continues to thrive without him. It's probably a bit of luck too since we've had heavyweight dominance for a long time and now it seems the talent pool at welterweight is relatively much stronger than any other division. When that happens fighters in and around that weight will converge to make the biggest most profitable fights.

Looking at the other divisions there isn't nearly as much talent. Heavyweight has the Klitschkos but that's it. Light heavyweight has only Bernard Hopkins who at 44 is still the king of the division. The middleweight and super middleweight divisions have Paul Williams, Kelly Pavlik, Arthur Abraham and Mikkel Kessler. Only Paul Williams is a super talent and only Abraham may have the potential to get there. In the lighter weight divisions you have solid talents like Israel Vazquez, Rafael Márquez, Nonito Donaire, Vic Darchinyan and Celestino Caballero but none of them are huge box office draws. Certainly, none of these divisions have the depth of talent that we see converging in the welterweight region. Whatever the reasons, lets enjoy the division and the matches yet to be made in it.