By Jason Kim: Top Rank President Bob Arum says he wants to match former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik up with WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. next year if Pavlik wins his next two tune-up fights that Arum has planned out for him. Pavlik will be fighting on April 14th, and after that he’ll take one more tune-up fight in 2012, and then Arum wants to look to put him in with Chavez Jr. in a Top Rank in house fight.

Arum said to vindy.com “If he [Pavlik] looks like he’s back [after his two tune-up fights], then we’ll make a pay-er-view fight against Chavez.”

I bet Pavlik likes that idea, because he recently said he wasn’t at all impressed with what he saw of Chavez Jr. in his recent win over Marco Antonio Rubio earlier this month. Chavez Jr. labored to a 12 round unanimous decision over the same guy that Pavlik completely dominated in stopping Rubio in the 9th round in 2009.

Pavlik is a much bigger puncher than Chavez Jr. and it will be interesting to see how Chavez Jr. does in that fight because he tends to try and slug it out with everyone he faces. If he does that against Pavlik, he could be in for a short night. Chavez’s promoter Freddie Roach would likely try and change his fighting style so he can avoid getting hit with Pavlik’s big shots.

Roach would try to have Chavez Jr. use the blueprint created by Bernard Hopkins in order to beat Pavlik. I don’t think it will be possible for a slow fighter like Chavez Jr. to accomplish that and he’d make things a lot worse for himself if he makes the mistake of rehydrating to 180 pounds. All that extra weight doesn’t translate to added power for Chavez Jr., and only makes him better at roughing up on the inside. Chavez Jr. will get knocked out by Pavlik while he’s trying to come in at him if he comes in that heavy.