Pavlik vs. Martinez: Kelly could face Super Six tournament winner next year
February 18th, 2010
By Chris Williams: WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO’s) faces easily his best opponent since winning his middleweight titles three years ago when he steps in the ring against junior middleweight Sergio Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO’s) on April 17th at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This fight has a lot riding on for the 27-year-old Pavlik, because if he wins, he could find himself in bouts against WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm later on in 2010, a possible fight against old war horse Winky Wright or fight against International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute.
Bute, Wright, and the Super Six winner will likely all be a step too far for slugger Pavlik. But first things first, Pavlik has to get by the 5’11” Martinez on April 17th. This may not be an easy task for Pavlik, because even though he’ll have a three inch height advantage over Martinez, he’ll actually be giving up an inch in reach to the Argentinean fighter.
As we saw in Martinez’s recent fight against Paul Williams, size means nothing for Martinez. His hand speed and movement is so extraordinary that it doesn’t matter if he’ll be giving up a little in the size department to the straight-up fighting Pavlik. The real question for this fight is whether Pavlik’s huge power will be enough of a problem for Martinez that Kelly is somehow able to pull out a decision.
Pavlik doesn’t have a nonstop high pressure style of fighting that Martinez had problems with in his 7th round stoppage loss to a young Antonio Margarito 10 years ago in 2010. Pavlik is rather slow and methodical, and tends to plod around the ring in straight lines. Pavlik doesn’t handle lateral movement well, as we witnessed in his lopsided 12 round decision loss to Hopkins in 2008.
Martinez is a much better mover than Hopkins, so Pavlik really has his work cut out for him in the Martinez fight. Martinez did have problems in his 12 round draw against big punching Kermit Cintron last year in February, but then again, Cintron showed some halfway decent boxing ability in that fight. But even though Cintron fought well at times and was able to get a draw, he appeared to get knocked out by Martinez after getting dropped by a left hand in the fight.
The referee blew the call and gave Cintron the benefit of the doubt after Cintron complained that the knockdown occurred from a head clash and not a punch. Martinez also lost a point by clinching in the final round, even though he hadn’t received any prior warnings for this.
If Pavlik can get by Martinez, then we could be seeing Pavlik go after Sturm next. Pavlik won’t be facing Paul Williams, unfortunately, because Williams wants a 50-50 of the revenues for a fight against Pavlik, and that’s not something that Pavlik’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank is going to agree to. The Sturm will be interesting if Pavlik’s management can line it up. But it’s hard to get excited about a Pavlik vs. Winky Wright fight because of Wright’s advanced age.
Winky is 38, and by the time that he and Pavlik fight, he could be 39. I’ve already see Pavlik get dominated by a fighter over 40, but I don’t think I want to see him take on another old guy and get humiliated again. If I want to see Pavlik get embarrassed, I’d rather see him fight a super middleweight like Bute, Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler or Andre Dirrell, all super Six tournament fighters.
Tags: 23 Responses to “Pavlik vs. Martinez: Kelly could face Super Six tournament winner next year”
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There’s a lot of time between now and the super-six conclusion so Pavlik can possibly fight Martinez, then Sturm, then Bute, then the winner of Super-six. And if Bernard is still around, then Pavlik can just end his career by annihilating him once and for all. Many of you fail to recognize that Pavlik had a bursitis sac in his elbow and entered the ring on Anti-biotics due to Bronchitis when he fought Hopkins. See, it’s kind of hard to leave 5,000 traveling fans hanging and also walk away from $3,000,000. All he had to do was get into that ring to get paid and he did. His jab had no snap and his body had no juice. Certainly he could have been like Joe Calzaghe did for most of his career and canceled fights at the last second all the damn time “No Show Joe”; but he’s from Youngstown and the idea is that ‘if you can walk you can fight.’ It turned out bad but hey, it’s the stuff comebacks are made out of…
I would love to see AA take on pavlik. I dont know what would happen. Their styles are so different but they both have tremendous KO power.
once again i am reminded why i hate bob arum and top rank so much. the super six are busy competing against the best of the best in each other and here you have top rank talking as though pavlik deserves a shot at the winner just because he is a decent draw in jersey. pavlik needs to show something before he can even be mentioned in the same sentence as the winner of the super six. and if they do consider a fight they will ask for too much and the fight wont be made so that pavlik will end up fighting a contender yet again. arum would be more than cool with that though, so long as he gets to milk more ppvs from white fans on the east coast. he should have fought williams for sure, i mean the staph infection is one thing but when you cancel a fight because of it and yet take another only two weeks after… well that’s another story. if he needed a tune up fight i can understand but that is not the case because they are not even considering williams anymore. this goes to show what a greedy promoter can do. just think of where pavlik was a few years ago, hungry and fighting the best. once he lost arum had handled him with velvet gloves and now we get to watch him pound on b level fighters. the sad part of the whole mess is that pavlik would probably fight anyone if it were up to him alone.
Kelly Pavlik is a victim of a mis-managed career in the worst way! This guy was a hot commodity after beating Miranda and Taylor. Then three title defenses against “C-level” fighters and an embarassing, non-title loss to Hopkins (not in that order). Signs to fight Williams an elite pound-4-pound guy, and has to post-pone and withdraw because of a recurring staph infection. Yet he somehow fights exactly two weeks later than the re-scheduled date with Williams?
My question is: What happened to fighting Williams? They signed a contract once and now they can’t agree. Maybe, it is Williams who changed the terms, I don’t know? So, instead of fighting Williams, he is going to fight the guy who just lost to Williams (although it was close)! It just doesn’t make sense to me?
I would love answers about why Pavlik and Williams can NO LONGER agree to terms.
This article is ridiculous. Winky is way past his prime. He got worked by Paul Williams who, when scheduled to fight Pavlik, was not only the challenger but the underdog.
“Glass Jaw”-hudson? Really
“what has Kelly done?”-RJV? Get real. He’s the middleweight champion of the world. He’s lost only one fight to the greatest middleweight of all time who, even though he is old, is in better shape than 95 percent of his contemporaries. He threw Taylor to the floor when he was at the top of the world of boxing, made Miranda look ridiculous. He’s still young. He’s 27.
Martinez koed cintron in the 7th end of. After you think you have won the fight your concentration lapses.
u can tell pavliks suseptable to the right hook!!! look hes been hit there so many times his mouth is wonkey!!!lol
The winner of the Super Six should call out Calzaghe . Or maybe Bute , if he gets passed Miranda… for some reason i think Bute is going to get knocked out by Miranda.
i use to like this guy , but for him to fight the winner of the SupSix is a bad idea . he didn’t fight AA at middleweight so what makes u guys think that he’s gonna fight him @ super middleweight???
Why should the super-six-winner face Kelly Pavlik??
Pavlik isnt as slow at this weight. He was sluggish at 170. I think he will catch Martinez eventually as the fight progresses. I have Pav by KO.
There’s an awful lot of foolishness being posted on this site, and that includes the article itself. Pavlik will humiliate Martinez and leave him slumped in a corner. He’d take Winky out in about 6 rounds. Wright knows that, and that is why he has turned Kelly down at least 5 times. Pavlik/Bute is a damn good fight. The winner would be the heavy favorite over any of the “B” level clods in the sauerland six.
Pavlik to face the tourney winner??? for what, he is not a 168# fighter, so let Bute fight the winner or any other who is at 168 but Pavlik, please he’s gonna lose. He’s got 2 performances at 170 and it hasn’t been any good for him, against Taylor it wasn’t what I expected and against B-HOP I pick him(KP) to lose but not the way it happened. So better stay at middleweight and focus on Sergio.
why should pavlik be allowed to fight the tournament winner what has he done since getting humiliated by hopkin’s?
pavlik is gonna slip. we all know pavlik is a sucker for slick fighters. ask hopkins about that one! but if pavlik does get pass martinez, williams SHOULD be next. if the dispute is about 50-50, just make it 60-40 for pavlik and have an incentive if williams wins cutting it down the middle. pavlik vs williams is the only fight at 160 that matters. it should be made while pavlik can still make the weight.
KELLY PAVLIK IS GOING TO DESTROY MARTINEZ IN APRIL TRUE STORY
i think kelly can go up and fight well in weight he just made an excuse because everything went wrong against b hop i dint think he will ever be 100 percent the same beleive or not being knocked out by hopkins will make alot of diffrence
kelly the joke pavlik. Whoever wins the super six should have bigger fish to fry than this chump pavlik who was too coward to enter the tournanment. Hes a chump fighting bums in a dead division, leave him there. I doubt the martinez fight will even happen. I can see another staph infection coming on fast
Hudson – Pavlik has a glass jaw? News to me…
Pavlik isn’t made to fight over middleweight, just like Hatton was a disaster at welter.
Wouldnt suprise me, until then though ide like to see him fight bute. The move up in weight has been a problem for pavlik in the past though so im sure he’d prefer to stay at 160, moving up to 168 could bring hopkins like consequences.
Time for him to take on Danny Green and get is glass jaw shattered by Danny’s heavy handed bombs and granite chin.
I couldnt care for this guy Pavlik. I dont think the super middleweights in that tournament should revolve around him. Ever since his skooling by B-hop. He’s only really got in the ring with bums. He should grovel to the winner of the super six, and then in turn get rejected. This kid has had the gloss taken off him, by B-hop. His opponents since then have shown his confidence has gfone. It can happen to us all. If he wants to move up a weight prove to the world he can unify the middleweigth division 1st