By Chris Williams: Using a catch-weight of 150 pounds instead of the full weight of 154 pounds for the junior middleweight division, Manny Pacquiao defeated a very tired and weak looking Antonio Margarito on Saturday night to capture the vacant WBC junior middleweight title at the Cowboys stadium, in Arlington, Texas. At the same time, Pacquiao won his 8th world title in as many divisions with the last two titles coming with the assistance of a catch-weight handicap to help Pacquiao against bigger fighters. Margarito looked tired after the third round tonight, and seemed weaker than usual for some reason.

One can only guess that great effort that Margarito had to take to squeeze into the catch-weight limit of 150 pounds was, in the end, too much for his rail thin body to take. When you’re as bone thin as Margarito, any extra weight that you take off is in the form of valuable muscle instead of fat. Margarito looked like another fighter tonight and didn’t have his strength to fight hard after the third. It’s too bad, because the Margarito that fought Miguel Cotto two years ago likely would have beaten up and stopped Pacquiao. Fighting at a catch-weight is hell for bigger fighters and godsend for smaller fighters. This could be the thing of the future for other smaller fighters to win belts the easy way.

Margarito outweighed Pacquiao by 17 pounds, but he looked as if the re-hydrating process had weakened him further.

Hopefully, this will be Pacquiao’s catch-weight fight, but knowing him and the way he’s into collecting paper titles, he’ll likely entice one of the middleweight champions, probably Sebastian Sylvester rather than the much tougher Sergio Martinez or Dmitiry Pirog , to fight him for his title so that Pacquiao can get a chance to win a 9th world title.