By Chris Williams: Top Rank promoter Bob Arum was open about the prospects of Manny Pacquiao absorbing greater punishment in his fights now that he’s fighting at welterweight against bigger fighters compared to earlier in his career.

Pacquiao, 32, took a lot of punishment in his last two fights against Joshua Clottey and Antonio Margarito. And even though neither of those fighters are considered to be the top guys at welterweight and junior middleweight, they were still able to land enough hard shots to mark up Pacquiao’s face and in the case of Margarito, hurt Pacquiao.

In an article at philboxing.com, Arum said Pacquiao “Is going to take poundings now in all of his fights because he is facing naturally bigger guys. He fights as a welterweight but he is much smaller than the normal welterweights.” Pacquiao really isn’t that much smaller than most of the guys that he’s been facing since moving up in weight. Clottey is 5’8″ compared to Pacquiao’s 5’6 1/2″, Cotto is 5’7″, Ricky Hatton 5’6″, and Mosley is 5’9.”

While Margarito is 5’11”, he was painfully slow and made it easy for Pacquiao by fighting him on the inside instead of using his reach the way that normal fighters would do if they had a height and reach advantage like Margarito. Now, if Pacquiao to were to be matched against someone like 5’10” Sergio Martinez, Pacquiao would likely struggle badly and possibly get knocked out. The reason is simple – Martinez knows how to fight and uses his height and reach to his advantage instead of foolishly giving it up by fighting on the inside against his sometimes shorter opponents.