By Chris Williams: WBC Emeritus middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (47-2-2, 26 KO’s) will reportedly be back in the ring as early as July against a still to be determined opponent. The 36-year-old Martinez is coming off an 8th round stoppage of previously unbeaten Sergiy Dzinziruk last weekend in a one-sided fight from start to finish. With that victory, Martinez cemented the fact that he’s the best fighter in the middleweight division by far. Martinez hopes to lure #1 pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao into fighting him.

However, Pacquiao and his promoters haven’t shown any interest in fighting Martinez, and that’s not surprising because Pacquiao would likely lose to Martinez and end up getting knocked out or beaten up. Bob Arum, Pacquiao’s promoter, says that he doesn’t want Pacquiao fighting bigger guys anymore after Pacquiao got a little dinged up in his last fight against welterweight turned junior middleweight Antonio Margarito. It’s too bad Arum chose to pick the struggling Margarito for Pacquiao to fight instead of Martinez. In hindsight, it was a wise decision by Arum because Martinez would have been a step too far for Pacquiao in my estimation.

With a Pacquiao fight not likely to happen anytime soon if ever, Martinez’s options aren’t that great. There are a number of decent middleweights in the division like Felix Sturm, Gennady Golovkin, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Matthew Macklin and Dimitriy Piog but getting them to fight Martinez is the problem. Martinez is dominating right now and no one really has much of a chance to beat him in the middleweight division. Martinez may have to look elsewhere in the super middleweight and junior middleweight divisions for interesting opponents. If he only fights middleweights, he could end up with an over-matched opponent that no one wants to see in his next fight.