By Dave Lahr: After Manny Pacquiao finishes getting his backside handed to him by the Mexican warrior Antonio Margarito next month on November 13th, I’d like to see Pacquiao continue to move up in weight or at least take on the fighter that was considered to be the best fighter in the junior middleweight division until recently when he was forced to make decision about which of his titles he wanted to hold onto. I’m talking about WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (45-2-2, 24 KO’s). I’d like Pacquiao to face Martinez in 2011 instead of wasting his time fighting Miguel Cotto again or beating up on the young kid Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. You know Martinez would have no problems coming down to 154 to fight Pacquiao, so that wouldn’t be an issue. Hopefully, Pacquiao wouldn’t ask for some god awful catch weight of 143 or some other nonsense to drain the energy out of Martinez.

Neither of those guys would even make for a halfway interesting fight for Pacquiao compared to Martinez. But I know that Pacquiao will never face Martinez. Pacquiao’s management team will almost surely say that the 5’10” Martinez is too big for Pacquiao, all the while ignoring the fact that Antonio Margarito is even taller than Martinez at 5’11”.

No, Martinez isn’t too tall for Pacquiao. That’s not what the problem is. The problem is he’s too good. Martinez doesn’t just stand there like a lot of Pacquiao’s recent opponents have done, and he won’t just come right at Pacquiao and make it easy for him. In other words, Martinez is like Juan Manuel Marquez X 2, and that’s why you’ll never see Pacquiao fight Martinez. If you think I’m wrong about this, watch and see. You won’t Pacquiao fight Martinez or Paul Williams.

What you will see if Pacquiao facing Cotto again and probably Chavez Jr, the Mexican fighter doesn’t wiped out in his next fight by Alfonso Gomez and by whoever Chavez Jr. faces in the early part of 2011. I think those two fights will be the end of Pacquiao’s career unless Floyd Mayweather Jr. steps it up and schools Pacquiao in a one-sided beating. I’d love to see that fight. I bet a lot of Pacquiao’s fans would be crying their eyes out after seeing Mayweather make easy work of their hero.