By Chris Thomas: With few other potentially interesting opponents left to fight in the middleweight division, World Boxing Council/World Boxing Organization (WBC/WBO) middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (34-1, 30 KOs) may be looking at a unification bout with IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (28-0, 23 KOs) in 2009.

According to the latest boxing gossip, Abraham’s promoter, Wilfried Sauerland, is looking to line up Abraham with a fight against Pavlik in 2009. Read more…

By Manuel Perez: Nearly two weeks ago, Kelly Pavlik (34-1, 30 KOs), who was then undefeated and considered by many to be one of the top fighters in all of boxing, was trounced by Bernard Hopkins in one of the most one-sided fights between top fighters in some time. The outcome stripped away the aura of invincibility from Pavlik while at the same time appearing to strip away many of his legions of fans in the process. Without a place to turn their attention, many of Pavlik’s fans - judging from the ring talk on internet boxing forums - have turned their attention to Mikkel Kessler (41-1, 31 KOs), the WBA super middleweight champion who comes from Denmark.

Although Kessler isn’t undefeated like say Joe Calzaghe, he has only one loss, a unanimous decision defeat to Calzaghe in 2007, but in Kessler’s case, he fought well in losing, and made it gave Calzaghe perhaps his toughest fight of his career. The same can’t be said for Pavlik, who looked badly outclassed by the 43 year-old Hopkins in a way that suggest that Pavlik would never be good enough to defeat a fighter like him no matter how much work he put into it. Seeing Pavlik humbled in such a way, has had to have been a crushing blow to many of his boxing fans who identified with him and his blue collar worth ethic. Read more…

By Adam Laiolo: Passing of the baton, old guard replaced by new they said. Youth vs. Experience and the hope of a nation dreaming of seeing a new hero crowned. Kelly Pavlik, current middleweight champion, against Bernard Hopkins, former undisputed middleweight champion for ten years and future hall of famer. The favor was for a Pavlik whitewash, with the hype around him blinding people to one thing - he was fighting Bernard Hopkins. I mean Bernard thrives in these circumstances. What happened next was not in the script. From the first bell, Hopkins sliding around the ring getting a feel for Pavlik, hitting with flush shots and making him miss, counter-punching Pavlik with overhand rights and left hooks.

Pavlik had nothing, no answer and when Bernard busted Pavlik’s nose early on, I knew this fight was over. The later rounds was thought to be a factor with Hopkins being 17 years his senior and I was waiting for something from Pavlik to show he actually could hurt Hopkins, but nothing. Constantly plodding forward, not even landing a scrape on Hopkins, yet getting constantly caught flush only frustrated him more, forcing him into making mistakes. I don’t remember, even after re-watching the fight, a meaningful spell of dominance, not for ten seconds. Read more…

By Eric Thomas: After being soundly defeated by Bernard Hopkins last Saturday night, a badly disappointed Kelly Pavlik said “I’m going back to 160 where I’m more comfortable.” Pavlik had said that he felt uncomfortable at 170, the catch weight that he and Hopkins had agreed upon ahead of time. The weight was a full 10 pounds higher than Pavlik’s normal weight class of 160, and only five pounds fewer than Hopkins light heavyweight class. Obviously, the weight was a factor in Pavlik losing the fight, but not nearly the full reason for him losing the bout.

Pavlik probably did feel slower and slightly weaker at 170, but that was only because he was fighting someone much more powerful than he normally has been accustomed to fighting at middleweight. In time, Pavlik might get used to fighting at the higher weight and could possibly do well enough to win a title at that weight as well, just as long as he didn’t have to face anyone like Hopkins, that is. In going back down to the middleweight division, Pavlik is returning as an utter failure in his bout with Hopkins, and it seems like he’s regressing by moving back down to middleweight, even though he was never planning on leaving the division in the first place. Read more…

By Chris Williams: On Saturday night, Bernard Hopkins may have proven himself to be the better fighter than Kelly Pavlik with his 12-round decision victory over him, but in the end, it will be Pavlik who will probably end up the much bigger star, make much more money and be long remembered by boxing fans. With Pavlik’s slugging style of fighting, notable for mutual knockdowns for him and his opponents, he’ll obviously never hold onto his title 10 years like Hopkins. However, Pavlik’s fights will be much more appealing to the average fan due to his brawling style of fighting, his tendency to take a lot of punishment and his sense of vulnerability.

His fights are much more action-packed then Hopkins’ bouts, which often are mind-numbing boring, filled with clinches, a lot of movement on the outside and dull inside work. Hopkins didn’t get popular until well into his career, around the time that he defeated Felix Trinidad in 2001. Read more…

By Michael Lieberman: Joe Calzaghe must be feeling a huge sense of relief right about now after middleweight knockout artist Kelly Pavlik was defeated by Bernard Hopkins on Saturday. There’s no getting around it, the loss was a huge defeat for Pavlik, and one that wiped out a lot of opportunities for him, one of which may or may not have been a fight with Calzaghe. Before the fight, Pavlik had been pushing hard for a fight with Calzaghe, but with little luck. Instead of wanting to face Pavlik, a fighter with an unbeaten record and an enormous amount of knockout victories, Calzaghe decided on Roy Jones Jr., a fighter that is perceived by many boxing experts to be the lesser threat than Pavlik.

Instead of Calzaghe facing Pavlik, the forty-three year-old Bernard Hopkins manned up and took the fight, and ended up giving Pavlik a terrible thrashing in the process. It’s unfortunate that Calzaghe chose to fight Jones rather than Pavlik, because who knows? Maybe it would be Calzaghe who would be getting all the praise right now for having beaten Pavlik instead of Hopkins. Read more…

By Jim Dower: Kelly Pavlik (34-1, 30 KOs) Going into his fight with Bernard Hopkins, Kelly Pavlik (34-1, 30 KOs) was thought to be near invincible as a fighter, a middleweight good enough perhaps to rule the division for years to come. There was one problem, however. Pavlik hadn’t ever fought an opponent with the boxing ability of the 43 year-old Bernard Hopkins, who ended up giving Pavlik a thorough beating for 12 long rounds. The fight was so one-sided, that it probably should have been stopped as early as the 8th round when it was apparent that Pavlik was totally out of his league and had no chance in beating the wily Hopkins.

In keeping the fight going, Pavlik took an incredible amount of punishment, in particular in the way of head shots, and had his left eye badly cut and his nose bloodied. Hopefully, the beating won’t have long lasting effects To Pavlik’s boxing career, similar to the type that occurred to Jeff Lacy after his equally one-sided loss to Joe Calzaghe in 2006. With no title on the line, and little to gain other than a good three million dollar payday, Pavlik had no reason to stay in the fight as long as he did, particularly when it became apparent that he was getting a bad beating from Hopkins. Read more…

By Chris Williams: In the latest boxing news, formerly unbeaten Kelly Pavlik was reportedly sick with bronchitis just days before his bout with Bernard Hopkins last Saturday night according to the The Vindicator newspaper. In addition, Pavlik had suffered an injury to his elbow which. The bronchitis, however, may have played a factor in Pavlik’s loss to Hopkins, because the illness is known to sap the strength from people. Even when they feel okay, it’s not advised to do strenuous exercise, as it doesn’t allow for the sick individual to be at their best. This would help explain Pavlik’s listless performance against Hopkins, in which Kelly looked weak and lethargic, as if he had little strength in his normally powerful punches.

Kelly himself had this to say about his fight with Hopkins: “I just couldn’t get off. My arms felt like they were 100 pounds each.” This is a classic sign of a lingering illness judging from Pavlik’s comments, and in hindsight, he probably should have postponed the fight for a couple of months to get well and bring his lung capacity back to where it was at previously. Pavlik’s father said “We know now that if he’s not completely healthy, we shouldn’t go ahead with the fight.” Read more…

By Chris Williams: Last Saturday night, Kelly Pavlik suffered a career debilitating 12-round decision loss to former middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Pavlik never stood a chance, as Hopkins used movement, speed, effective counter punching and good inside fighting to get Pavlik out of his game and make him look like a complete novice. Hopkins, 43, hurt Pavlik (34-1, 30 KOs) several times in the bout with big shots and had him in trouble in the 12th and final round after nailing him with a flurry of punches.

The beating, which is essentially what it came down to, left Pavlik a bloody mess, his nose and left eye bleeding and his face reddened from the punches he’d been forced to eat from Hopkins. Afterwards, Pavlik said “I didn’t feel like me tonight. I felt like a sub-novice.” He also mentioned that he’d be moving back down to the middleweight division to defend his WBC title, presumably against his number #1 challenger Marco Antonio Rubio, who also fought on the same card and looked very beatable and mediocre. However, rather than wasting time on fighting dull contenders with little talent, Pavlik needs to train hard and seek out Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs) for a rematch. Read more…

By Eric Thomas: After watching Bernard Hopkins give previously undefeated Kelly Pavlik a total boxing lesson en route to defeating him by an easy 12-round unanimous decision, I have to wonder whether or not Pavlik will ever be the same fighter again after the way he was beaten. It wasn’t just an average run of the mill type beating, this was a thorough domination from start to finish with Pavlik utterly helpless against the faster, stronger and much more nimble Hopkins. Hopkins won by the scores of 117-109, 119-106 and 118-108, but they only tell the partial story of how badly Pavlik was beaten.

He got beaten every way you could imagine – on the outside, inside and in the power game. Pavlik was just too slow and crude, and looked like he didn’t belong in the same ring with Hopkins. While Pavlik can console himself with not having lost his WBC/WBO middleweight titles, which weren’t on the line on Saturday because he was fighting at 170, the loss is perhaps even more damaging than him losing mere titles. Read more…

By Scott Gilfoid: Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs) exposed previously unbeaten Kelly Pavlik on Saturday night, soundly beating him by a lop-sided 12-round unanimous decision at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hopkins, 43, fought much better than he’s looked since beating Felix Trinidad years ago, dominated Pavlik throughout the 12-round, and made him look like a rank amateur. I predicted the outcome days earlier after noticing how limited Pavlik looked against Jermain Taylor, Edison Miranda and Jose Luis Zertuche, arguably Pavlik’s best competition up until his fight with Hopkins on Saturday night.

Pavlik, 26, who fights in a traditional straight forward type of style, immediately had huge problems with Hopkins lateral movement. Accustomed to having his opponents stand directly in front of him, where they’re essentially helpless, Pavlik was completely lost with Hopkins’ constant movement and had no plan B to counter this style. Even worse for Pavlik, however, was that Hopkins had the much faster hands. Read more…

By Scott Gilfoid: Not much has been discussed about some of the advantages that the veteran Bernard Hopkins will be bringing into his fight with Kelly Pavlik on Saturday night. While Pavlik certainly has the upper hand in terms of youth, work rate, power and stamina, Hopkins has a number of things going for him that may lead to victory if he can put them all together against Pavlik. To start with, Hopkins is the bigger man, and is used to fighting at 175. Pavlik looked slow and lethargic in his second fight against Jermain Taylor at the 166 pound catch weight. How will Pavlik perform now that he has to come in even heavier at 170?

This is going to be a rare fight where Pavlik isn’t the stronger fighter, and it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to that. Sure, he’s the bigger puncher, but Hopkins punches almost as hard as him, albeit much less often. On the inside, Hopkins may be able to use his extra power to muscle the slender Pavlik around and get in shots that Pavlik, an outside fighter, won’t know how to defend against. Read more…

By Jim Dower: Bernard Hopkins, 43, is probably hoping he can slow the fight down enough against Kelly Pavlik, 26, on Saturday to make the fight close at the end. In doing so, he wins regardless of the outcome. Hopkins would remain a viable opponent for other top fighters to hone their teeth on, and give him additional big money title shots against other champions or top fighters. At his age, Hopkins is in the position of a spoiler, someone who comes out smelling like a rose if he can fight close enough to make the other fighter look bad in winning. After all, if a fighter like Pavlik was really as good as people say he is, he wouldn’t have to struggle to beat a fighter as old as forty-three year old Hopkins.

The problem is, Pavlik has never been a fighter that wins his bouts without getting messy in the process. He always gets hit with big shots by his opponents, and only succeeds due to his nonstop withering fire. Pavlik was previously knocked down in fights with Fulgencio Zuniga and Jermain Taylor, and on each occasion, he got up off the deck to return fire and eventually win the fights. Read more…

By Chris Williams: In three months, Bernard Hopkins will be 44 years-old, making him one of the oldest active fighters in boxing. It’s quite an accomplishment that he’s still fighting at this late age, even though he’s lost most of his last five fights. On Saturday night, Hopkins will be taking arguably his toughest opponent of his career in the way of Kelly Pavlik, the undefeated WBC/WBO middleweight champion. The fight won’t be for the middleweight championship, as it will take place at a 170 pound catch weight. Hopkins has stated that “He’s [Pavlik] got great defense, but eventually … his defense will lapse a couple of times,” indicating that Hopkins may somehow believe that he has a chance of stopping Pavlik.

One would hope that Hopkins isn’t pinning his hopes on that coming about, because if it doesn’t, he may find himself in deep water against the hard-punching Pavlik. It’s been four years since Hopkins scored a knockout, the last occurring on a phantom body shot delivered against Oscar De La Hoya in the 9th round in September 2004. Read more…

By Jason Kim: As much as I’d like to see this Saturday’s fight between undefeated middleweight Kelly Pavlik and veteran Bernard Hopkins as being potentially an interesting bout, my thoughts are that it will be a dull one, a fight filled with cinching, wrestling and a lot of fouls. Contrary to what Pavlik (34-0, 30 KOs) has been saying about him possibly being able to knock the 43 year-old Hopkins out, I just don’t see that scenario happening on Saturday. Hopkins can take a good shot and he won’t give Pavlik much of a chance to get more than one or two shots off at a time before diving in and clinch him.

Hopkins will be looking to survive, and will shut down Pavlik’s high explosive offense with his grabbing and wrestling. This, indeed, is how the fight will be conducted. In other words, on Hopkins’s terms, with him clinching all the way and of course losing by a decision. Read more…

By Paul Willock: This fight is a difficult one to predict, not because I do not know who to pick for the win, but you never know how a fight with Hopkins will end up because he makes most of them look ugly. My long thought out prediction is that Bernard ‘The Executioner’ Hopkins (48-5, 32 KO’s) will be stopped for the first time in his career by a young, prime Kelly ‘The Ghost’ Pavlik (34-0, 30 KO’s).

For the first few rounds, Hopkins will make the fight look ugly, with his superior defensive abilities he will be able to slip away from the constant one twos that Pavlik will be firing at him. He’ll clinch, head butt and possibly milk a few body shots, claiming them to be low blows, which we’ve all seen before in the bout against a light hitter, Joe Calzaghe. But how long can Bernard hold this dirty fighting up? Pavlik is no doubt a heavy hitter, and with constant pressure coming from him too, this will soon break down Hopkins’ defence. Hopkins will begin to look slow, tired and a different fighter altogether. Bernard simply cannot take this kind of pressure at his age. Read more…

By Jim Dower: To listen to some of 43 year-old Bernard Hopkins’ conference call comments today, he sounds more than a little out of touch with reality as he refers to himself in the third person, and says “If Kelly Pavlik thinks he’s going to beat Bernard Hopkins because he has a right hand, he’s a damn fool.” Unfortunately for Hopkins, the 26 year-old undefeated Pavlik (34-0, 30 KOs) has much more than just a big right hand, though that will probably be enough to defeat Hopkins in their October 18th bout at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Hopkins appears to have gone a step too far in the selection of his opponents. He was defeated by a 12-round split decision in his last fight against Joe Calzaghe on April 19th, and might easily have won the fight if he’d have just let his hands go a lot more rather than clinching continuously, wrestling and falling to the canvas when he was hit low. It seemed for the most part that Hopkins didn’t have the energy to fight hard for the full 12-rounds against Calzaghe, and hence Hopkins only has himself to blame for not getting the decision. Read more…

By Andrew Latimore: We have Kelly Pavlik a young, strong, raw champion, up against an old cagey, highly experienced Bernard Hopkins. Kelly Pavlik, a young, primed, heavy-hitting superstar who has legitimately beaten Jermain Taylor, twice, the guy who beat Hopkins twice. Hopkins doesn’t have the hand speed to catch him like Taylor did (he doesn’t have the punching power of Taylor either). If Pavlik is aggressive, Hopkins is just going to be a stationary target - he doesn’t have the energy to go full rounds anymore, and doesn’t have the power to keep Pavlik off him.

Will it end up with Pavlik walking him down from the beginning, missing shots early, but the pressure will eventually wear Hopkins out - by the middle rounds he won’t be punching back, and it will be round after round of Pavlik’s offense just accumulating punishment. He had to ‘take a break’ from Calzaghe’s pitter-pats. Pavlik’s punishing punches will beat him down. Whether we use the term “basic” or “one-dimensional” the point is that Pavlik offers no surprises: he’s conventional and pretty simplistic in his approach. He’ll simply come after Hopkins and try to walk him down and knock him. Read more…

By Jim Dower: Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) will wrap up his excellent career against Roy Jones Jr. (58-4, 38 KOs) on November 8th at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a fight that has earned Calzaghe a huge amount of criticism by many boxing fans who wanted to see him go out in style against undefeated Kelly Pavlik. Calzaghe, 35, however, is doing what Oscar De La Hoya is going, namely going after the most amount of money at the least amount of risk. He certainly deserves a easy fight or two after having a stellar career in which he defended his WBO super middleweight title countless times without losing once.

However, by ending his career in a big money fight against an opponent that some feel that is unworthy, Calzaghe is angering a lot of people and tarnishing his career in their eyes. If he does end up retiring after his fight with Jones, can Calzaghe still be considered an all time great? That’s kind of a touchy question, because Calzaghe’s choice of fighting Jones rather than Pavlik, makes it seems as if Calzaghe is avoiding the more dangerous threat against Pavlik just so that he can finish his career with his legacy and unbeaten record intact. Calzaghe didn’t help his case any by having to fight hard in his last fight, defeating a ring weary 43 year-old Bernard Hopkins by a 12-round split decision. Hopkins, however, slowed the fight to a crawl and made it an ugly fight by clinching Calzaghe, and keeping him from throwing his nonstop combinations. Boxing fans, though, don’t care about that, all they care about is that Calzaghe struggled against Hopkins and was barely able to beat him by a close decision. Read more…

By Michael Lieberman: After watching this week’s Steve Bunce boxing special, I’m more than a little confused about who’s telling the truth between Joe Calzaghe and Kelly Pavlik in terms of whether or not Calzaghe ever offered a fight to Pavlik in the past. According to Calzaghe, he twice contacted Pavlik about a fight in the past but he failed to take the bait. For his part, Pavlik is saying that Calzaghe has never once offered to give him a fight, and is just trying to “save face” by saying that he offered Pavlik a fight which he wouldn’t accept. One thing is clear, however, Calzaghe clearly isn’t interested in fighting Pavlik anymore, if he ever was to begin with.

Calzaghe is more interested in making easy money, saying “I deserve to get the biggest fights of the day…I want to retire and keep my looks intact.” The part where Calzaghe said that he’d like to keep his looks intact, seems to give me the impression that he doesn’t want to fight Pavlik because he understands how hard such a fight would be and would potentially risk getting hurt by him. Read more…