By Chris Williams: WBA/WBO lightweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez (52-5-1, 38 KO’s) has taken a page out of Manny Pacquiao’s playbook by finding a fighter that’s looking totally shot with Marquez’s choice of faded star Erik Morales (51-6, 35 KO’s) to fight on April 9th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Marquez-Morales bout comes a month before Pacquiao’s bout against the shot-looking 39-year-old Shane Mosley, which will be taking place on May 7th at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The winner of the two old timers fights really needs to meet up and prove who the better fighter is. Marquez has had Pacquiao’s number in the two fights that he had with him in 2004 and 2008. The judges scored it a 12 round draw in the first fight and a 12 round split decision victory for Pacquiao in the second fight in 2008. Ignore those results, because Marquez appeared to win both fights, win most of the rounds, and looked to be the better fighter by far.

Pacquiao has pretty much run out of opponents to fight after exhausting his Top Rank promoter Bob Arum’s entire stable of guys. There’s really not much left in the stable for Arum to drag out and have Pacquiao beat up unless Arum wants to drag out some more obscure fighters with no fans to fight Pacquiao or have him go over old ground and beat the stuffing out of Miguel Cotto or Antonio Margarito. That would, I feel, be terrible for boxing if it winds up on pay-per-view for the world to gawk at and marvel at how Arum could have the nerve to put these guys back in with Pacquiao.

Since Floyd Mayweather Jr. isn’t going to be fighting Pacquiao in 2011, if ever, there’s really no one else for him to fight unless Pacquiao wants to fight WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez. I can’t see Arum letting Pacquiao take a beating by putting him in with Martinez. Arum only puts Pacquiao in fights that he has a pretty good idea he can win, and Martinez wouldn’t fall into the category where Pacquiao would have a good chance of beating.

Morales has absolutely no chance of beating Marquez, not even a knockout chance. Morales is too slow, too fat and too faded to do anything more than get pounded on until the plug gets pulled on him by his corner at some early point in the fight. This is going to be like one of those spectacles that end early once Morales starts getting pounded on.