By Chris Williams: After watching Manny Pacquiao beat a slow, hand-picked Antonio Margarito on Saturday night by a bloody 12 round unanimous decision, trainer and HBO analyst Emanuel Steward recommended that Pacquiao not fight bigger and/or better junior middleweights like Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams. Steward said “The idea of him [Pacquiao] fighting Martinez or Paul Williams, extremely big guys, it doesn’t fit too well. Big guys that are fast also. I think the excitement right now is in the 140 pound division. That might be where to go. The Amir Khans that are coming up. The Tim Bradleys, and those kinds of guys. He may have to go back to that area. Maybe just jumping up, up, up and up. After awhile, I think he’s plateauing up there.”

Yes, Steward is right. Pacquiao did well against a fighter that was slow enough and limited enough for him to win, but guys like Sergio Martinez and Paul Williams would do a number on him, and maybe even Yuri Foreman. Obviously, Pacquiao’s promoter Bob Arum must feel the same way, and that’s why Margarito was selected for Pacquiao and not Martinez and Williams. It wouldn’t look good seeing Pacquiao get beaten up by those guys when he’s trying to capture all these paper titles. Margarito, a welterweight, was perfect for Pacquiao to fight for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title.

After all, Margarito is not only slow of hand and foot, but he also isn’t even a junior middleweight. Technically, he is because Arum had him quickly fight in May against an obscure fringe contender to get Margarito ranked, but he’s not a junior middleweight. This is why the win over Margarito is kind of a trick win. It serves the purpose to give Pacquiao a beatable opponent for him to fight for the paper WBC title, but it’s not the same as fighting a real junior middleweight with size, speed, boxing ability and power. In that case, Pacquiao would have likely been in over his head and lost. As Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach likes to say, he would never put him in with a fighter that he thinks Pacquiao would lose to. This is a pretty good reason why he’s not going to be matched against Martinez and Williams.