By Allen Fox: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (37-2, 32 KO’s) hasn’t fought since his poor performance against Alfonso Lopez last May in which he struggled to beat an unknown fighter by a 10 round majority decision. Pavlik was supposed to have fought on August 6th against Darryl Cunningham in a fight that would have payed Pavlik $50,000.

Pavlik was then supposed to take on IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute in November. That fight would have given Pavlik a cool $1.35 million. However, Pavlik cancelled both fights, feeling that he should have been payed more for them. That move probably didn’t help Pavlik’s career any because it it could make him look less stable for the cable networks to want to risk showing his fights in the future.

Pavlik thinks he should have received more money for both fights, but it’s hard to agree with him because lost his titles to Sergio Martinez last April and has only fought once since then. Pavlik is no longer a champion, and usually when a fighter gets beaten as bad as Pavlik did against Martinez, they see their pay drop significantly. Pavlik hadn’t been a very busy champion before the Martinez loss, fighting only twice in 2009, and once in 2010. He was plagued with a hand issue that eventually required surgery to fix.

Pavlik’s trainer Jack Leow doesn’t know when Pavlik intends on fighting again, saying to Cleveland.com “I couldn’t give you a yes or a no about what’s going to happen. I haven’t talked to Kelly since it [Cunningham fight] was cancelled. If he wants to fight, we’ll move forward.”

That doesn’t sound very promising, does it? You have to wonder Pavlik has his heart in the sport anymore. He turned down a lot of money for the Bute fight and it’s unlikely he’ll get that kind of offer against any other fighter, especially now.