By Dan Ambrose: Boxing writer Bert Sugar thinks the upcoming November 13th fight between Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao is a B+ fight, according to an article by writer Chris Robinson at Examiner.com. Sugar, who has written over 80 books about boxing and other sports, said this about the Pacquiao-Margarito fight: “It’s a B+ fight, not the A+ fight we were looking for which is still the most anticipated fight since Tommy Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard 30 years ago. But this is not chopped liver. This is a good fight.”

I don’t know if I agree with Sugar. If my head was still stuck in 2008, I’d call this a B+ fight, but Margarito hasn’t looked like the same fighter he once was in his last two fights and there’s a lot of questions about his power now. He doesn’t look like the huge puncher he was previous to his loss against Shane Mosley in 2009. I can’t call it a B+ fight now, not with the way that Margarito has been looking.

It’s more like a C fight if anything. Rather than matching Pacquiao against guys like Mosley, Andre Berto, Paul Williams or Sergio Martinez, all of whom I think would beat Margarito, Bob Arum has decided to match Pacquiao against one of his own fighters. I think Arum is two years late on this fight. Had it been back in 2008, it would have been a great fight but not now.

Margarito looks like someone completely different and he was taking punishment and running in his last fight against little known Roberto Garcia. That’s not a good sign for Margarito going into his fight against a much better fighter like Pacquiao. I’m sure Sugar knows a lot about boxing, but I think he’s dead wrong in calling this a B+ fight. If he had said it was a D+ fight, I think he would be a lot closer to reality than it being characterized as a B+ bout.

Margarito has had battles against Paul Williams, Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey in the past, beating Cotto and Clottey, but he doesn’t look to be the same fighter he was back then. And even if he was, I’m still not sure he would be good enough to compete with Pacquiao. He was always really slow and wide his punches. Margarito was able to get away with this because he didn’t face much quicker fighters. Pacquiao will be a lot faster and will give him problems with his speed and movement. No, I don’t see this fight as a B+ fight. It’s closer to a D than a B.