By Dave Lahr: Two time former world champion Gerry Penalosa feels pretty confident in Manny Pacquiao’s ability to get by Antonio Margarito on November 13th, saying in an article at Philstar.com, “It’s Manny’s time. He’s the world number #1 pound-for-pound fighter. Nobody can beat him in his division. The key is his quickness. I don’t think Margarito can touch him. He’s too slow for Manny. I’m not worried about his height. Manny has beaten fighters who were taller than him, like Oscar De La Hoya. Manny will turn Margarito into a punching bag.” It’s difficult to get anything from Pacquiao’s win over De La Hoya, because Oscar had starved himself in the process of boiling down to 147 to fight Pacquiao.

Plus, De La Hoya was an old 35 when he fought Pacquiao and had lost three out of his last six fights. And one of those wins was against Felix Sturm, so you can count that as a loss because De La Hoya appeared to lose that fight. You can’t get much of anything from Pacquiao’s win over De La Hoya other than it was a case of good match-making.
I disagree with Penalosa saying that “Nobody can beat him [Pacquiao] in his division.”

If Penalosa is saying that nobody can beat Pacquiao at welterweight, then I disagree completely. Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Paul Williams would both likely do a number on Pacquiao. However, Pacquiao won’t fight Williams and we probably won’t be seeing Mayweather against Pacquiao anytime soon. If Penalosa is talking about at junior middleweight, then I think he’s wrong there as well.

I don’t see Pacquiao ever beating Sergio Martinez, James Kirkland, Alfredo Angulo or Sergeii Dzinziruk. And if Paul Williams is fighting at that weight, then you can add his name to the list as well. As such, I can’t agree with Penalosa in his belief that Pacquiao can’t be beaten in his division. I do agree that he can’t be beat if he doesn’t fight these guys. Yes, I think Pacquiao will do fine as long as he keeps fighting Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito. He can beat those guys. If Penalosa is talking about the light welterweight division, I still don’t think Pacquiao can dominate all the top fighters in that class. I see Timothy Bradley boxing circles around him, as would Devon Alexander. I think Victor Ortiz would have an excellent chance of knocking Pacquiao out cold.