By Dan Ambrose: WBC Emeritus middleweight champion Sergio Martinez wants to fight Floyd Mayweather Jr., Miguel Cotto or Manny Pacquiao next. He’s not going to get any of those fighters next, and probably never for that matter. What the 36-year-old Martinez may have to settle for is middleweight contender Peter Manfredo Jr. (37-6, 20 KO’s) on July 9th. According to the latest boxing news, Martinez’s promoter is hoping to match Martinez up with the 30-year-old Manfredo Jr. next if HBO will go along with the idea.

It’s clearly a horrible mismatch on paper, as Manfredo, ranked #7 IBF, #9 WBC in the middleweight division, has been beaten by the likes of Joe Calzaghe, Sakio Bika, Sergio Mora (twice) and Jeff Lacy. He’s not in the same class as Martinez in terms of talent and hasn’t any real big wins that would suggest that he would have any chance of even being competitive with Martinez.

This would likely be an even bigger mismatch than Martinez’s recent 8th round stoppage of Sergiy Dzinziruk last weekend. Manfredo has won his last six fights after being absolutely crushed by Bika in a 3rd round stoppage in November 2008. I don’t know that HBO will want to go along with this fight because it might end too quickly and be too one sided to be interesting match-up.

If they want to give Martinez an easy fight, they need to put him in with someone like Andy Lee, because at least he only has one loss and has won his last 10 fights. Lee would have no chance but it would be at least sort of an appealing bout with Emanuel Steward trying to help Lee figure out how to beat Martinez.