By William Mackay: It doesn’t help that WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (34-1, 30 KOs) was not long ago soundly defeated by a fighter that is trained by the new hot trainer Nasim Richardson, but the similarities go further than that. Like Antonio Margarito, Pavlik was expected to win big in his last fight and ended up taking sound thrashing, winning zero rounds and badly beaten.
The fight was essentially over for Pavlik in the 1st round, as Bernard Hopkins had far too much speed, movement and overall boxing ability compared to the one-dimensional Pavlik. Margarito, too, was destined to fail against Mosley, in that he didn’t have the speed to compete with the wily veteran. In the end, Margarito looked like a pupil in with a teacher and was beaten in every which way you can imagine.
Now, Pavlik finds himself trying to pick up the pieces of his career by defending his title against his number #1 challenger in the WBC Marco Antonio Rubio (43-4-1, 37 KOs) on February 21st at the Chevrolet Centre, in Youngstown, Ohio. If this fight had occurred months ago before Pavlik’s loss to Hopkins, many people would have felt that it would have been a mere formality for Pavlik, an easy fight and a hopeless mismatch.
Not now, though. Pavlik’s confidence has likely taken a huge hit with his one-sided loss to Hopkins, and it’s probably too soon for Kelly to have regained much without having fought. Having to face Rubio, an excellent fighter with fast hands, good power and above average ring smarts, is not a good thing right now for the 26-year-old Pavlik.
Not only does Rubio have the power and speed to beat Pavlik as bad as Margarito was beaten by Mosley, he also has the blueprint already in front of him in the form of Pavlik’s loss to Hopkins. I’m certain that Pavlik has worked like the devil to try and fix his flaws, but the flaws that exist, his lack of hand speed, foot speed or boxing ability, are ones that can’t be fixed.
Pavlik won’t ever get any faster than he is now, and more likely will be slowing down in the coming years rather than getting any faster. It was only a matter of time before a fighter with good boxing ability outclassed him. Rubio is a fighter that has skills similar to Hopkins, and maybe slightly better power.
Unless Pavlik has somehow picked up a higher gear in his offense, I can see him having big problems in this fight and possibly losing again. Rubio will box, move and tie Pavlik up on the inside and prevent him from throwing his repetitive one-two combinations.
At the same time, Pavlik’s double jab might not be enough to overcome the movement and speed of Rubio, who won’t be standing in front of him to let him land his jabs and power shots. This very well could end up being a fight as bad and as one-sided as the Mosley-Margarito and Pavlik’s loss to Hopkins.
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