Pavlik-Williams: Will Kelly get exposed again?

By Dave Lahr: WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KO’s) must be still smarting from his embarrassing 12 round decision loss to then 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins last October. And if Pavlik isn’t, perhaps he should because the loss as one-sided as you’ll ever see. Pavlik was never even close to being competitive with Hopkins, and that’s not a good thing when you hold two middleweight titles like Pavlik does. Paul Williams, who Pavlik is hoping to beat on December 5th in Atlantic City, New Jersey, will be trying to add to the damage that Hopkins did to Pavlik’s career.

Williams will be moving up in weight from the light middleweight division to try and take Pavlik’s two titles. The weight issue might not be as big a deal as some people think, because Williams is only moving up six pounds and he stands roughly the same height as Pavlik at 6’2”.

Pavlik is counting on his power to be too much for Williams to take. However, if Williams can take the shots from a big puncher like Antonio Margarito for 12 rounds, then there’s an equally good chance that Williams can stand up to Pavlik’s power punches. Pavlik won’t have to go searching for Williams to try and walk him down, because Williams will likely be stranding right in front of Pavlik trying to snow him under with punches.

You could say that this is the ideal opponent for Pavlik, but then you might be wrong. Williams can take a heck of a shot and still keep ticking. His forte is to throw a massive amount of punches per round, every round until his opponents is taken out or he wins by decision. Pavlik can’t match Williams in that department, and probably he shouldn’t even try. Pavlik is a knockout puncher.

That’s how he wins his fights. If he is unable to take Williams out, then Pavlik will lose and perhaps lose badly. He can’t average 80 to 100 punches per round like Williams can, and must depend on winning the rounds by landing the harder, more telling shots. However, it will he hard for Pavlik to get much credit from the judges if he’s unable to shut down the massive incoming fire from Williams.

The judges won’t be able to ignore Williams if he’s raining punch after punch down on Pavlik for 12 rounds. Williams doesn’t miss much and will be probably finding it easy to connect to the head and body of Pavlik without too much trouble. Williams made his last opponent, Winky Wright, look really bad as he beat him by a lopsided decision.

Wright was considered one of the best boxers in the sport of boxing, yet Williams just stood in front of Wright for 12 rounds throwing punch after punch without letup. Wright couldn’t keep up with the pace, and couldn’t hurt Williams. Thus, the fight ended up being a painfully one-sided affair.

This very well could be Pavlik’s fate on December 5th. Pavlik was fortunate that his WBC/WBO middleweight titles weren’t on the line for his fight against Hopkins, because he would lost them on that night. Pavlik will have his titles on the line against Williams and could end up with nothing if the bout goes as I expect it to. Pavlik would be then reduced to that of a normal middleweight contender, having to battle it out against other top middleweights to try and get a shot at one of the champions.

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