By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao will be facing Antonio Margarito for the WBC junior middleweight paper title on Saturday night. Why this fight needs a title, I have no idea. Apparently, Pacquiao wants to collect another title for some reason, as if it registers with boxing fans. I don’t know that too many of them particularly care that Pacquiao is fighting for the vacant World Boxing Council junior middleweight title, because it’s not a popular division and Margarito isn’t a popular fighter. He also has almost prior experience at that weight, having fought only once at that weight in the past six years.

For a fighter to get respect for winning a title, it usually requires for them to either beat a long time champion or the fighter who is considered to be the best in the division. In the case of Margarito, he is neither of those things. If Pacquiao were to take on the best junior middleweight, he’d be facing the tough prospects of trying to tangle with fighters like Paul Williams and Sergio Martinez, and the sad reality is Pacquiao would likely get easily beaten by both of them even with one of his catch-weight handicaps working for him. Pacquiao could have an even more severe catch-weight than his one for the Margarito fight, and I still seeing him getting stomped by both Martinez and Williams. Is it any wonder then that Pacquiao is fighting Margarito and not those guys?

Okay, so let’s assume for the sake of this article that Pacquiao somehow beats Margarito on Saturday to capture his 8th paper title. I don’t know that Pacquiao will win the fight, but lets pretend that he does. If Pacquiao wins, I see this as the last time that he ever captures as a professional fighter, because he won’t be crazy enough to try and fight for a 9th world title against one of the middleweight champions, because even with one of his weight and strength draining catch-weight handicaps working for him, he’d still have to fight at 155. And that would mean he’d be facing a full sized junior middleweight plus one pound. The weight isn’t even the issue, though.

The fact is champions like Sergio Martinez, Felix Sturm, Sebastian Sylvester, Gennady Golovkin and Dmitriy Pirog are simply too good, too powerful and too deadly with their jabs for a fighter like Pacquiao, who depends on jumping in and put and overwhelming his opponents with shots. Those guys would jab Pacquiao’s head off and likely bust up his face and have his eyes swollen shut from their long jabs.

Pacquiao won’t want to face that kind of experience. This is why Pacquiao has seen his last title fight if he gets past Margarito this weekend. Pacquiao will still likely fight for titles, but not ones in new weight divisions like middleweight and super middleweight. He knows his limitations and won’t want to get spanked by the top middleweights. The same would happen to Pacquiao if he took on the best of the junior middleweights instead of the hand picked Margarito.