By Chris Williams: With Manny Pacquiao and his team uninterested in taking a fight with WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (46-2-2, 25 KO’s), the Argentinian star has to be content with defending his title against little known WBO junior middleweight champion Sergeii Dzinzirum (37-0, 23 KO’s) on March 12th at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Mashantucket, Connecticut. Due to the weak talent in the middleweight division, there really isn’t very many options for Martinez in terms of quality bouts unless he wants to fight unification bouts every time he fights.

The only decent fighters in the division are champions Felix Sturm, Gennady Golovkin, Sebastian Sylvester and Dimitry Pirog. The rest of the contenders are pretty weak. Martinez was looking to fight middleweight contender Andy Lee, a tall skinny fighter with poor defense and even worse stamina. Thankfully, HBO nixed that idea before boxing fans had to sit through another mismatching involving Martinez.

Dzinziruk will be a much better match, because with his boxing skills, defense and excellent jab, he may be able to fend Martinez off and turn this into a really close one. Martinez will still have a big advantage with his punching power, but Dzinziruk could neutralize his power by jabbing him frequently and timing him with left hooks. Dzinziruk has been in the same boat as Martinez has been in the junior middleweight division.

There hasn’t been any competition for Dzinziruk, as he’s able to easily fly through his first 37 opponents without one tough fight. It doesn’t matter who you match Dzinziruk up against in the junior middleweight division, he’s simply a lot better than everyone else down there, and that includes Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito and Alfredo Angulo.