By Chris Williams: Former two division world champion Sergio Martinez (48-2-2, 27 KO’s) is looking to get a fight against unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. in the near future, the 36-year-old Martinez wants a career defining fight before he gets out of the sport.

Martinez had been trying to get a fight against WBO welterweight champion Manny Pacquiao, but struck out due to an inability to get Pacquiao and his team to agree to a catch weight. Martinez agreed to fight Pacquiao at a 150 pound catch weight, which was a number that Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum mentioned in the past for a Martinez-Pacquiao fight. However, when Martinez agreed to that weight, he was reportedly told that in order to fight Pacquiao he would have to fight at 147 pounds without a catch weight and wouldn’t be able to weight above 150 the night of the fight.

That’s a pretty good reason for Martinez to move on and look elsewhere for a fight because it would be a problem for Martinez just to make 150 lbs alone, but then to have a weight stipulation where he couldn’t go above 150 the night of the fight, that’s not realistic because he would be completely weight drained if he were to fight Pacquiao under those conditions.

In an interview at Reuters, Martinez said “It’s a disgrace what they [Pacquiao’s management] are asking. It would be better if they just said they didn’t want to fight me, because they know I’ll knock him out…I don’t know when the last time Pacquiao took on one of the best pound for pound fighters. Marquez today is not the fighter he was five years ago.”

Well, it’s pretty clear after watching Pacquiao struggle with 38-year-old Juan Manuel Marquez this month that Pacquiao would probably be over his head against a bigger and stronger southpaw like Martinez. I give credit to Pacquiao for beating the guys that his promoter has set him up with from his Top Rank stable, but Martinez is a couple of levels above the likes of Joshua Clottey, Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito. And he’s also arguably a lot better than other Pacquiao opponents Ricky Hatton, Oscar De La Hoya, Marquez, and Shane Mosley at this stage in his career. I can understand why Pacquiao’s team wouldn’t be eager for him to fight Martinez because he’d take a beating in that fight, especially with his attacking style of fighting.

Pacquiao doesn’t know seem to know how to fight any other way, and he’d go right at Martinez and likely get crushed before long.

Martinez is now hoping to get a fight against Mayweather, which is obviously the more realistic option because Mayweather is open to challenges and isn’t a big stickler on catchweights. In the absence of any other big named opponents, Mayweather could very likely take the fight with Martinez to prove that he’s the best fighter in boxing. Mayweather hardly needs to prove anything at this point, because with Pacquiao’s controversial win over Marquez on November 12th, it pretty much cements the opinion in the minds of many boxing fans that Mayweather is the best fighter in boxing.