By Chris Williams: If you were one of those many fans who were hoping the winner of Saturday’s WBC middleweight clash between champion Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams would get a chance to fight World Boxing Council junior middleweight champion Manny Pacquiao in one of his catch-weight fights that he’s becoming known for, you can pretty forget that from ever happening. Earlier today, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum ruled out anymore fights by Pacquiao against bigger fighters because of how beat up Pacquiao got against pumped up welterweight Antonio Margarito last Saturday night in their catch-weight fight at 150 pounds.

Although this really wasn’t a authentic junior middleweight with big power and great boxing skills that Pacquiao was fighting, Arum still considers the welterweight Margarito a big fighter and doesn’t want Pacquiao to be taking on any other similar sized fighters in the future. This is bad news if you’re Williams or Martinez, because one of the reasons for those guys fighting was for the winner to get a shot against Pacquiao. It would have been a perfect setup for a fight against Pacquiao, but it won’t happen now.

In an article at Yahoo Sports News, Arum said “At this point, I don’t want to put Manny in with another big guy, a guy even bigger than Margarito. It’s not that he [Pacquiao] couldn’t beat them or that he couldn’t handle them, but it’s like a great racehorse. I cant keep putting him in with bigger, stronger guys without wearing him out. That fight really affected him physically. He took a lot more beating in that fight than he did in his others. He got hurt. he’s banged up a little bit. It’s tough giving away that kind of weight and size.”

Arum sure does have good timing in stopping Pacquiao from fighting bigger fighters after fighting two smaller fighters – Miguel Cotto [only 5’7″], Joshua Clottey [ only 5’8″], and one taller with zero hand speed and limited defense, Antonio Margarito [5’11”]. Sergio Martinez is 5’10”, but has great skills and excellent speed and movement. And Paul Williams is 6’1″, and throws nonstop punches. Pacquiao would have been in serious trouble against either of them. It’s too bad Arum didn’t match Pacquiao up with those guys before taking on Clottey and Cotto, but of course Pacquiao would have had a great chance of losing, so it’s not surprising that he was never put in with Martinez and Williams. I honestly don’t think Arum ever seriously considered matching Pacquiao up with Martinez or Williams. Those fighters are a whole different ball game compared to Cotto, Clottey and Margarito.

Let’s be clear about Pacquiao’s paper title win. He’s not going to defend it, and if Pacquiao did try and stick around at the weight class for long, he’d get wore down by the bigger fighters like Alfredo Angulo and James Kirkland and his career would be dramatically shortened because of his lack of size. Even if Pacquiao dodged those two guys, which is pretty much a move I would expect of Pacquiao, he would still take heavy punishment against the likes of Erislandy Lara, Saul Alvarez, Kermit Cintron and Vanes Martirosyan. Pacquiao couldn’t dodge all of them and the catch-weight that he would likely fight them all at wouldn’t be enough to weaken them sufficiently not to take punishment. I think Pacquiao would likely win all those fights, but he would get hit much more than he did against the slow punching Margarito.