By Chris Williams: Right now a lot of boxing fans of Kelly Pavlik (38-2, 33 KO’s) are excited about his future after he defeated a soft fighter picked out for him to easily beat in Aaron Jaco (15-3, 5 KO’s) last Saturday night in Pavlik’s 2nd round TKO comeback fight. But let’s put this in perspective.

The win means nothing because it just gives the illusion that Pavlik is still on the top and handling things, but he’s clearly not. He defeated a 3rd tier fighter picked out for him by his promotional team and he’s got more easy fighters that he’ll be facing in the future, perhaps for the remainder of the year.

Here’s the thing: Pavlik is fighting in the super middleweight division now where there are few weak spots to go after for him. I guess the easiest thing for Pavlik right now would be to try and jockey himself into position to where he can fight the WBO paper champion Robert Stieglitz for his title. However, that would be a serious test for Pavlik because Stieglitz is faster than Pavlik and could end up beating him up like Bernard Hopkins and Sergio Martinez did.

If Pavlik’s promoter Bob Arum has the intention of trying to put him in with the very best of the super middleweight division and not against the paper champion Stieglitz, then I see nothing but misfortune for Pavlik in the future. Pavlik isn’t going to beat WBA/WBC super middleweight champion Andre Ward, and he’s clearly not going to beat IBF champion Lucian Bute, if he would even agree to fight, which I doubt.

Pavlik had the chance to fight Bute last year and turned down a million dollar payday. What does that tell you? I don’t see Pavlik facing Bute and Ward, and who cares if he fights for the WBO paper title because few boxing fans see the title holder of that belt as anything more than a paper champ. Pavlik will do well if Arum can keep digging up weak opponents but he’s going nowhere in the super middleweight division. Pavlik needs to move back down in weight if he wants to do anything.