By Dan Ambrose: I’ve been looking at Manny Pacquiao’s fight with Antonio Margarito recently and not really understanding why Margarito was chosen to be put in with Pacquiao for the title instead of someone better. It looks funny to me for Pacquiao to be matched against a fighter that has fought only once at junior middleweight in six years.

I can’t really consider Margarito a junior middleweight when he’s only had one fight in six years at that weight, and that was recently this year when Margarito defeated a fringe consider Roberto Garcia.

A lot has been made about Pacquiao moving up in weight for this fight and how he’s taking on a big fighter. But come on, Margarito is a welterweight, not a junior middleweight. Basically, Pacquiao is fighting someone that is smaller – at least in weight – than his last opponent Joshua Clottey. Margarito may be taller than Pacquiao at 5’11” compared to 5’6″ Pacquiao.

However, Margarito doesn’t use his height like normal fighters do when they have a long reach. Margarito likes to stand close and trade on the inside, and completely nullifies his own height and reach advantage. Why wasn’t Pacquiao matched against actual light middleweights like Paul Williams, Sergio Martinez or Alfredo Angulo?

I don’t get it, and makes me think that Pacquiao and his team are cherry picking opponents so that Pacquiao has a better chance to win his 8th world title. If Pacquiao beats Margarito, I’ll find it hard to acknowledge it as a real win over a legitimate junior middleweight, because I don’t see Margarito as a junior middleweight and I don’t think he deserves to be fighting for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title after only one fight in six years.

I see this as a counterfeit belt. If Pacquiao wants to collect titles, I think he needs to fight in that weight class, drop the catch-weights that he’s now been leaning on more and more, and fight the best fighters in the division. I don’t think Miguel Cotto was the best welterweight, and that’s who Pacquiao beat to capture the WBO welterweight title, using a catch-weight to help get the title.

I won’t be able to respect Pacquiao if he beats Margarito, because I see this as a case of Pacquiao taking on a guy that’s been carefully selected for him to beat. If you were to put Pacquiao in with Angulo, Williams, Sergeii Dzinziruk or Sergio Martinez, I see Pacquiao getting beaten up badly. Those are really the best junior middleweights, not Margarito. That’s just some guy from the welterweight division who happens to have the same promoter as Pacquiao.

That’s why I see this title fight as a fake. I can’t respect a win over a guy that was recently beaten up by Shane Mosley, and who then fought some unknown fringe junior middleweight contender to get pushed to the number #1 spot by the WBC. I don’t see Margarito as even a top 10 junior middleweight. Pacquiao should have to fight someone like the above mentioned fighters if he wants to go and collect another title. At least it would be one in which he had to take on the very best in the division to get the title.