By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao will once again be getting a catchweight for his next fight against Antonio Margarito for the vacant WBC light middleweight title at a still to be determined location. The catchweight will be 151 and it’s already been quickly agreed upon by Margarito, who probably is just happy to have been selected as Pacquiao’s next opponent by Bob Arum of Top Rank.

Margarito had problems making weight for his fight against Shane Mosley last year when Margarito was the WBA welterweight champion. He lost that fight by a ninth round stoppage. When Margarito came back, he fought at junior middleweight at 154 against a little known opponent Roberto Garcia.

Margarito won that fight by a ten round decision, but looked very average in doing so. But with the catchweight asked for by Pacquiao’s team, will Margarito be weakened sufficiently for Pacquiao to get an advantage? If not, Pacquiao could end taking a real pounding from Margarito.

Pacquiao took a lot of punishment in his last fight against Joshua Clottey last March, and this was with Clottey only throwing twenty punches per round. Margarito, if he doesn’t get knocked out, will be throwing a lot more than that and Pacquiao could find himself getting beaten up like he did against Erik Morales in 2005.

Margarito has the power and the work rate to beat the living daylights out of Pacquiao. However, if the catch weight weakens Margarito sufficiently, then Pacquiao will have his handicap and will have a good chance of beating Margarito for the WBC title.

It’s too bad that there wasn’t a more qualified opponent for Pacquiao to fight for the title, because I really don’t see Margarito as being a legit junior middleweight contender. This should be Pacquiao vs. Sergio Martinez, but he was recently pushed into giving up one of his titles. But I guess Pacquiao probably would not have fought Martinez, because he’s a lot faster than Margarito and also doesn’t fight for Top Rank.