By Sean McDaniel: WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik could be facing Paul Williams as early as October, according to the latest news talk. If, however, the negotiations stall between the two fighters, then Williams is prepared to fight World Boxing Organization light middleweight champion Sergei Dzinziruk instead.

Either way, boxing fans win because Dzinziruk might be as interesting a fight as Pavlik-Williams due to Dzinziruk’s impressive boxing ability. Pavlik, 27, is a good fighter, but he’s received a lot of attention for three wins in his career against Jermain Taylor, whom he beat twice and Edison Miranda, a fighter which has since been easily beaten by Arthur Abraham and most recently by Andre Ward.

Pavlik was badly outclassed last year by a 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins in a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision defeat in October 2008. For Pavlik, that was his first experience facing a pure boxer and he failed miserably. The movement, combinations and the skills of Hopkins was way too much for Pavlik in the fight, leaving him badly beaten and confused by the end of the bout. Pavlik may like Williams as an opponent for the simple reason that Williams likes to stand and trade shots.

But, that’s not likely going to be the case by the time these two fighters meet in the ring, if they actually ever do. Sure, there are some unknowns in this fight. Williams, considered tall at 6’2” for the welterweight division, won’t have the size advantage over Pavlik, who is 6’2” himself.

However, Pavlik has also faced mostly smaller opponents than himself and looked badly out of his league against the 6’1” Hopkins, easily Pavlik’s biggest opponent in his nine year pro career. Williams won’t be afraid to slug with Pavlik, which is probably what Pavlik is counting on. However, Williams has a much higher work rate than Pavlik and if he cranks it up to 100 or so punches per round, Pavlik may go into his shell the same way he did in his fight with Hopkins last year.

Pavlik looked like he was in the shutdown mode by the 6th round and seemed to just go through the motions in the last half of the fight. If Pavlik can’t hurt Williams with a big shot, he’s going to be in for a long evening of pain. There’s zero chance that Pavlik can match Williams’ high punch output and without being able to knock Williams down or out, he’s going to take a lot of punishment.

Williams has never been hurt or knocked down in his career and he’s been in with Antonio Margarito. Pavlik is going to have to take it to another level with his power shots and hope for the best. Williams will probably walk forward and test Pavlik by throwing a massive amount of punches early on, and unless Pavlik can get Williams’ attention with something big in the first few rounds, Williams made end up shutting Pavlik down and beating him to a pulp.

Thus far, Pavlik hasn’t been knocked out in his career but then again he’s never fought an offensive machine like Williams before. This fight has mismatch written all over it, if Pavlik can’t take Williams out with something big in the early part of the fight.