By Chris Thomas: According to ESPN writer Dan Rafael, undefeated WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KOs) could be facing former welterweight/junior welterweight champion Felix Trinidad (42-3, 35 KOs) on June 7th at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Pavlik’s promoter, Bob Arum, would like for him to fight either Trinidad or John Duddy in Pavlik’s next bout, due to each of them being popular on the East coast. Though Pavlik still has to face Taylor first this Saturday, Pavlik will still be champion by virtue of this being a non-title bout.
Trinidad, 35, would make an appealing fight for Pavlik because of the large Puerto Rican fan base in the New York area, many who show up to see Trinidad, even though he’s been an ineffective fighter in recent years, having lost 3 out of his last 5 bouts. Arum particularly wants the fight to take place on June 7th, because it comes about a day before the yearly Puerto Rican Day parade in New York.
For that reason, Trinidad would be the ideal candidate, as the thought would be that he would bring in many more fans than what would normally come in for such a mismatch. Let’s be serious about the fight itself, Trinidad, whom is coming off a 12-round unanimous decision loss to Roy Jones Jr. on Janaury 19th, doesn’t have a prayer against a fighter of Pavlik’s class.
Perhaps even a prime Trinidad would find himself over his head against a larger, more powerful Pavlik, who would find Trinidad the ideal opponent because he would be standing directly in front of Pavlik all fight long. Trinidad is getting a lot of credit from his recent fight with Jones, only because Trinidad did well at times, and wasn’t knocked out. However, he was still dropped twice in the bout by Jones, many of whom consider a shot fighter in his own right.
Trinidad, though a decent puncher for a welterweight, he’d likely only be able to make a bout with Pavlik entertaining foir a round or two before Pavlik would quickly chop Trinidad down with big right hands. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Before this bout can come off, Arum needs to reportedly work out a deal with Trinidad’s promoter Don King.
It’s uncertain what King has in mind in the near term for Trinidad, but unless it’s a bout with someone like Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Ricky Hatton or Floyd Mayweather Jr., there’s no other fighters out there that can generate fan interest like Pavlik can.
I would say, Jermain Taylor, but I highly doubt that he’ll be in the position to ask for a fight with Trinidad, in that Taylor will most probably get knocked out again on Saturday night in his rematch with Pavlik. As for the undefeated Duddy, he’s the leading candidate for a match with Pavlik, but he’s not nearly as well known as Trinidad, and probably is about the same level of talent – which is to say that Duddy isn’t as good as his record indicates. However, Duddy’s appeal is his undefeated record, hollywood looks and his fan base on the East cost. As far as talent goes, he appears to be a bottom top 10 middleweight, not close to being in the same class as Pavlik.
Trinidad looked bloated against Jones in their recent bout, which calls into question whether he can even make middleweight any longer without drastically starving himself. I have no doubts that he can make the weight, although in the process of taking the weight off, Trinidad will be considerably weaker going into the bout. However, it won’t make that much of a difference in terms of the outcomes, for Trinidad would get knocked out by Pavlik no matter what weight Trinidad came into the bout.
One concern that I have of Pavlik, though, is the matching of him against a string of weaker fighters like Duddy and Trinidad. I don’t see either of these fights as being competitive, and both will likely end in a quick knockout. For me, a better fight would be for Duddy to face Trinidad. Now that would be an interesting fight, because both are about the same skills and we’d possibly see a much more entertaining bout in the long run.