By Matt Stein: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) won’t have to worry about melting down to the middleweight limit of 160 pounds for his next fight against little known Daniel Edouard (23-3, 14 KO’s) on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito fight on November 13th at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas.

Pavlik, 28, will be fighting Edouard at a catch weight of 164 pounds. This means that Pavlik, who has been walking around at 180+, won’t have to strip off quite as much weight as he did last time when he melted down to fight Sergio Martinez in April.

Pavlik lost that fight and looked horrible. He weighed 178 the night of the fight after having made weight at 160 the day before. It’s pretty clear that Pavlik needs to move up in weight to either the super middleweight or the light heavyweight division.

But you can see why he might be hesitant to do that, because both of those divisions have some talented fighters and Pavlik might not be good enough to win a title at those weighs. At least if Pavlik stays at the middleweight division, which has been one of the weakest in all of boxing for the past two years, Pavlik would have a good chance of winning and holding down another middleweight title.

But Pavlik is going to have to be selective in who he fights from now on, because there’s some guys in the division that Pavlik would have a lot of problems against and may not have the talent to beat, such as Sergio Martinez, Felix Sturm and Dmitriy Pirog.

Pavlik might be good enough to beat Sturm, but that would be a very tough fight for him because Sturm is a pure boxer and has an excellent jab. Pavlik could find himself getting beaten just as he was against 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins in 2008.

And guys like Gennady Golovkin and Hassan N’Dam N’Jikam are fighters that Pavlik might end up losing to if he takes them on. Those fighters are the newer stars and Pavlik would be best to stay away from them unless he wants to get beaten again. But Pavlik needs to move up in weight, because he’s probably going to continue to have problems making the 160 pound middleweight limit.

He’s getting as break for the Edouard fight, but he can’t be fighting for middleweight titles weighing above the limit. I know Manny Pacquiao is fighting for titles using catch weights, but he’s coming in under the weight. Pavlik may need to move up if he wants to win another title, because he could be too weight drained to beat one of the top middleweight champions.