By Chris Williams: In his pursuit of more and more world titles at different weight classes, Manny Pacquiao no long appears to be going after the best champion in each weight class when he shoots for new titles; Pacquiao now appears to be just fighting guys from his own Top Rank promotional company instead of other fighters that fans might consider better fighters. Since there’s usually four champions in each weight class instead of just one, it seems to lose the value if you don’t take on the fighter that is considered to be the best in that weight class.

For example, when Pacquiao captured a title in the lightweight division in 2008, instead of going after Nate Campbell, who was considered by many boxing fans to be the best lightweight champion in the division at that time, Pacquiao fought WBC lightweight champion David Diaz instead. Okay, so Pacquiao beat Diaz by a 9th round stoppage, but it’s not nearly as impressive as it would have been had Pacquiao fought the very best champion in that division instead of Diaz.

When Pacquiao moved up in weight to go after the welterweight title, rather than going after World Boxing Association welterweight champion Shane Mosley, who many fans considered to be the number #1 champion in the weight class, Pacquiao opted to fight Cotto instead. Cotto has been torn apart by Antonio Margarito two fighters earlier and hadn’t looked good in his fight after the Margarito bout against Joshua Clottey. Wouldn’t it have made more sense for Pacquiao to go after Mosley if he wanted to take on the guy that fans saw as the best of the champions at that time? By fighting Cotto, it just looked, at least to me, that Pacquiao was fighting someone that was beatable.

It’s really not Pacquiao who does the choosing of opponents, though, so it’s not really on him who he fights, but it is odd that Pacquiao is being directed at guys that aren’t necessarily considered to be the best of the champions. What’s the point in collecting titles if you’re not going to be fighting the best guys? Collecting awards just for the sake of collecting awards seems meaningless to me unless it was done against the very best of the division. If a fighter is taking on less than the perceived best fighter when going after titles, it seems to lessen the value of it. I personally couldn’t find any real meaning in collecting titles if I felt that I hadn’t taken on the best fighter in doing that. I would feel uncomfortable if someone mentioned that I won a certain amount of titles and I wouldn’t want that to be something I was known for.

Pacquiao is now going to be fighting Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title on November 13th, despite the fact that Margarito has fought only twice at junior middleweight in the past six years and Pacquiao has never fought at that weight class. I don’t understand how the WBC is allowing the fight to be for the vacant title and I don’t understand why Margarito is ranked number #1 in the division with so few fights at that weight. As far as I can tell, before Margarito’s 10 round decision win over fringe junior middleweight contender Roberto Garcia in May, Margarito hadn’t fought at junior middleweight since 2004. How can Margarito be ranked at number #1 then? Instead of taking on Margarito for the WBC title, it would have been nicer to see Pacquiao fight Sergio Martinez when he was still holding the WBC junior middleweight title. But now that he’s moved up in weight, WBO champion Sergeii Dzinziruk is arguably the best of the current champions. Why didn’t Pacquiao fight him instead of Margarito? I think Dzinziruk is far better than Margarito and he’s been fighting at the weight class for ages. He’s not someone that was suddenly positioned at number #1 for some reason and he didn’t leap frog over a 15 other top contenders to get a title shot without having fought once at that weight. Why isn’t Pacquiao fighting him?