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Jeff Pryor takes a look at Manny Pacquiao's victory last Saturday night over Joshua Clottey.

There was something a bit pretentious about the way Joshua Clottey laboriously danced his way to the ring on Saturday night. In a way it summed up my feelings about the Ghanian fighter, one that I have been loathe to appreciate for much of his time in the relative spotlight.

Clottey seemed to think he's pretty special, that he'd somehow earned our support, that he ought to be given the benefit of the doubt in every case. He'd never lost he said, and had an excuse for every narrow defeat and every missed opportunity. Tonight the bigger, stronger, fighter was to make good on his claims of misbegotten woe and turn his fortunes around.

Well, against Pacquio he had a rude awakening. He didn't fight like a man with a chip on his shoulder, or someone with something to prove, he fought like a fighter who doesn't have the stuff to be a champion at the highest level. By any measure Clottey's performance was a colossal failure. In fact the only thing Clottey succeeded at, was making the otherwise eminently exciting Filipino fighter boring (though even that minor victory was tenuous. More on that in a minute...)

Let this performance put to rest the notion that Clottey "should" have won against Baldomir or Margarito or Cotto; those men each have their short comings, but what they all share is a determination to win that Clottey has only ever pretended to have.

Now let's put Clottey out of our minds, (and out of our main events), and talk about the man who packed those fifty thousand plus into the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. Pacquiao's performance was not as eye catching as his destructions of De La Hoya, or Hatton, or his systematic dismantling of Cotto, yet it was impressive when you consider the trouble Margarito and Cotto had with Clottey's overbearing defense and sudden, but sporadic bursts of activity.

No one has whitewashed Clottey the way Pacquiao did. In a way, Manny combined the nonstop aggression of Margarito, and some of the slick punishing boxer skills of Cotto to deliver a total performance that Clottey just couldn't deal with. It was telling towards the end of the bout, after the announcing team had long been questioning Pacquiao's patience with such a fight, that it was Clottey who tossed a punch low, and hit a prone Pacquiao on the break, showing mental weakness that not even his cement laden noggin could overcome.

To be fair, at times, Clottey was able to connect flush shots to Pacquiao's head. But it's a phenomena that often happens with such fighting styles. I think back to Jorge Arce's 2007 fight against Julio Ler. After riding in on a dancing horse, Arce was left to pummel the exclusively defensive minded Ler against the ropes for round upon round. Late in the bout, Ler opened up with a few eye opening hooks that caught Arce flush. In that case it only made Arce madder, and it wasn't long before he had battered Ler back in to his shell. The point is, sure if you don't throw a punch for a couple rounds, you are going to catch your opponent sleeping at some point when you open up. But a flush shot, here and there does not a victory make... certainly not when you are the challenger.

Some might question Pacquiao's defense based on those random shots Clottey landed... again, they were effective for the very reasons Clottey was losing the fight; they were sporadic at best and it's not easy to get into a defensive groove when your opponent isn't a threat for all but a moment here and there. The other reason to reserve harsh judgement, is that it appeared Manny was inviting contact at times, looking to goad Clottey into opening up, and probably, based on the Filipino's history of violence in the ring, just looking to make a glorified heavy bag more interesting to himself and the fans that had come out to see him.

If someone thinks Pacquiao will stand in front of Mayweather or Mosley, put the blinders on and wait for a reaction as he did several times to Clottey I think they are mistaken... but hopefully we get a chance to find out for sure later in the year.

Pacquiao made it look easy against a guy who, against the other top shelf welterweights of recent history, put up a hard fight, if ultimately always falling a bit short. A victory over Clottey on anyone else's career is a solid and notable notch. For Pacquiao who's glittering litany of victories include those Hall of Fame bound fighters like, Barrera, Morales, Marquez, De La Hoya, Hatton and perhaps Cotto (who may be a borderline case at the moment), it is just another in a long list of solid challengers he's turned down, fitting in nicely below Oscar Larios, a solid champ, and above David Diaz a middling belt holder.

Looking ahead, Clottey and Berto would make a good pair to see who belongs NEAR the top five of the division. Pacquiao will move on to political fights and then hopefully late in the year, return to face down whoever comes out of the big fight on the first of May.

One thing is for sure, with victories over Cotto and Clottey, Pacquiao has stamped himself emphatically as a legitimate Welterweight championship fighter and one half of the puzzle in solving who the best of the division is.

So long as the other pieces of the puzzle fall into place, boxing watchers should be should be treated to a definitive capping of a division and perhaps career, later this year.

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