By Chris Williams: On Saturday night, Bernard Hopkins may have proven himself to be the better fighter than Kelly Pavlik with his 12-round decision victory over him, but in the end, it will be Pavlik who will probably end up the much bigger star, make much more money and be long remembered by boxing fans. With Pavlik’s slugging style of fighting, notable for mutual knockdowns for him and his opponents, he’ll obviously never hold onto his title 10 years like Hopkins. However, Pavlik’s fights will be much more appealing to the average fan due to his brawling style of fighting, his tendency to take a lot of punishment and his sense of vulnerability.

His fights are much more action-packed then Hopkins’ bouts, which often are mind-numbing boring, filled with clinches, a lot of movement on the outside and dull inside work. Hopkins didn’t get popular until well into his career, around the time that he defeated Felix Trinidad in 2001.

By then, he’d already held the IBF middleweight title for six years and had successfully defended it a shocking 13 times without a loss. The problem was, most of his opponents weren’t big named fighters, the type that fans really cared about, and is style of fighting was more of a technical type. There’s nothing wrong with being a technician in the ring, but it’s not a style that wins many fans in boxing.

This is why sluggers such as Julian Jackson, Gerald McClellan, and George Foreman are so well thought of long after they’ve retired from the sport. Generally, knockout artists are flawed, and occasionally are defeated by boxers, yet it’s the knockout artists like Pavlik that remain still the much more popular fighters even with the defeats. Few would argue that Hopkins has the better overall skills than Pavlik. It was clearly apparent on Saturday night that Hopkins had the better movement, and the much sounder defense, yet without a big named opponent like Pavlik, I’d be willing to bet that Hopkins would still have problems selling tickets to his fights after this.

Whereas in Pavlik’s case, he’ll probably remain just as popular as he was before his loss to Hopkins – nothing will change. The thing of it is, Pavlik was sick when he took the fight, as he was suffering from bronchitis. And to top it off, he was fighting at 170, a full 10 pounds higher than his natural weight of 160. If Hopkins is a real man, he needs to try dropping 15 pounds and facing Pavlik at 160, when he’s well and not suffering from any kind of illness.

That’s something I don’t see happening, because Hopkins has his victory now, and he won’t want to see it possibly marred by having Pavlik make adjustments and possibly beat him. Hopkins’ fights are dull, even his big named bouts with Antonio Tarver, Winky Wright and Joe Calzaghe. All were tediously boring, filled with clinches, wrestling and a lot of movement. In contrast, Pavlik has had wars with Edison Miranda, Jermain Taylor, Fulgencio Zuniga and Jose Luis Zertuche. Any day, I’d match up those fights with any of Hopkins’ bouts and I’d be willing to bet that Pavlik’s fights would be considered for more exciting to the average boxing fan.

While I doubt that Pavlik will be able to hold onto his middleweight titles for anywhere close to the amount of time that Hopkins has done, I think Pavlik will end up making much more money than Hopkins, even though Pavlik won’t likely stick around nearly as long as the 43 year-old Hopkins. That’s because Pavlik takes too much punishment in his fights while pleasing fans, and for that reason, it’s highly unlikely that he can stick around for the long haul with that kind of style.

In a way, he’s like the middleweight division’s version of Ricky Hatton. In other words, a straight ahead, no nonsense, hard-punching, entertainer. Hopkins is pretty much the opposite of that, a type of fighter that grinds out his fights with clinching, post shots, movement and inside fighting.