Pavlik cleared by Doctors to Start training on Oct 10th – News

By Boxing News - 09/10/2009 - Comments

By Dave Lahr: WBO/World Boxing Council middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KO’s) has reportedly received clearance by doctors to begin training for a December 5th bout against Paul Williams, according to Cleveland.com. Pavlik’s training will begin next month, on October 10th, with the December 5th date in mind for a fight against Williams.

Pavlik has recent surgery on his left hand to take care of a nagging staph infection that had been lingering for months and hadn’t healed through the use of medicine. Pavlik, 27, really needs this fight to reestablish himself as one of the biggest stars in boxing. As of now, Pavlik’s star has faded somewhat due to an embarrassing 12 round decision loss to 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins last October.

It’s one thing losing to a fighter the age of Hopkins, but the fight wasn’t ever close. Hopkins dominated Pavlik as if their ages were reversed with Pavlik fighting like a 44-year-old and Hopkins like a 27-year-old. This is a much needed wake-up call for Pavlik, something to let him know that he has other aspects to work on with his game, most notably with learning how to handle movement.

Pavlik seemed unprepared with the slightest bit of movement that Hopkins was making during their fight and seemed to have a lot of troubles adjusting to it. Part of the issue for Pavlik is that he’s been served up with a lot of middleweight opponents, like Edison Miranda and Gary Lockett, who went right at Pavlik and tried to take him out. Pavlik is more of a stationary fighter that likes to trade big shots.

Those fighters, and many more like that, were perfect opponents for Pavlik to fight. Pavlik didn’t have to learn anything or make any adjustments with his game because these fighters went right at him and made it easy for him. Hopkins saw Pavlik’s weakness and took advantage of it by moving just a little in the fight, enough to keep Pavlik from setting up his offense and getting his shots off.

Against Williams, Pavlik will likely run into the same problem he did against Hopkins. Unless Pavlik has learned anything since then, he’ll end up getting easily beaten once again. This time, Pavlik will lose his middleweight world titles and will have to start from scratch working his way back up the middleweight ladder.

Pavlik’s promoter, Bob Arum, was quick to give an excuse for Pavlik’s loss to Hopkins, saying “That why’s Pavlik wasn’t himself. He was on antibiotics. He had no energy.”



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