By Dan Ambrose: Only two weeks after losing his WBC/WBO middleweight titles to Sergio Martinez in Atlantic City, Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) still hasn’t decided whether to use his rematch clause in his contract with Martinez to try and regain his lost belts or move up in weight. But what is alarming is that Pavlik has reportedly ballooned up in weight to an incredible 192. In an article at the Tribtoday.com, Pavlik’s long time trainer Jack Loew says that Pavlik has put on weight and is now weighing 192, which is 14 pounds heavier than Pavlik’s fight weight of 178 on April 17th.

This suggests that Pavlik has some real soul searching to do before he decides whether to fight a rematch with Martinez, as it seems that he’s having a harder time making the middleweight limit of 160. After weighing in at 159 for the weigh-in before his fight with Martinez, Pavlik put on almost 20 pounds off water through rehydration and entered the ring at a massive 178. The extra weight seemed to slow Pavlik considerably, tiring him out in the 2nd half of the fight.

I don’t know whether Pavlik would have been able to beat Martinez had he been lighter, but I think he wouldn’t have faded the way he did in the latter part of the fight. It’s possible that through conditioning and diet, Pavlik can get back down to 160 and not have a repeat performance like his last fight, but I have my doubts about whether or not Pavlik can still make the 160 pound limit without draining himself of massive amounts of water to make weight. Pavlik might be better off jumping up in weight to the super middleweight division and trying his hand at that weight class rather than risking another loss to Martinez. Loew thinks that Pavlik will be able to take the weight off in 9 weeks for a rematch with Martinez. Loew says “We will have to train smarter, and I will have to ask Kelly if he is willing to train two times a day.”

If you look at how Pavlik performed in his two fights against Jermain Taylor and compare that with his recent fight with Martinez, it’s like looking at two different fighters. Pavlik was skinnier and much more active in the Taylor fights than he was in the Martinez loss. In the Martinez fight, Pavlik looked slow and sluggish, throwing few punches and appearing tired.
The weight that Pavlik put on before the Martinez fight appeared to be mostly muscle, which makes you wonder whether he’s spending too much time pounding the tire with a sledgehammer during training or weight lifting.

At 6’2”, Pavlik can’t afford to bulk up because with his frame, it’s easy for him to fill out more and outgrow the middleweight division. This is what it looks like Pavlik is doing, but he needs think hard about whether it’s worth it to take off that muscle, and possibly weaken himself, or move up in weight to the super middleweight or light heavyweight divisions to try his luck there.