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.” It seems that Pavlik took a gamble on going ahead and making the fight, probably figuring that even with the illness, he’d have enough to defeat the 43 year-old Hopkins. He probably didn’t want to lose out on the huge payday by delaying it until a later date.

Whatever the case, it was obviously the wrong thing to. Illnesses like bronchitis are very serious, and there’s no way a fighter can perform anywhere near their peak performance while suffering from this condition. At best, Pavlik was probably performing at only 60% of his normal capacity, which means that Pavlik went into the Hopkins fight nowhere near his optimal condition. I’m sure Pavlik now wishes he hadn’t taken the fight, because few boxing fans will probably be interested in hearing excuses now. And with the one-sided nature of their fight, there will probably never be much interest from fans or Hopkins for a rematch.

Indeed, Hopkins doesn’t have too much time left on the clock and won’t want to waste time going over old ground. I figured something was wrong with Pavlik just by looking at him try and throw punches in the first round. He looked weak, much weaker than I had ever seen him before, and his energy level just didn’t seem to be there. I had assumed it was due to the 10 pound weight gain he had been forced to put on in order to fight at the 170 pound limit for the fight, but that really made no sense.

When fighters come in at a slightly higher weight, they’re stronger for having done it, not weaker like Pavlik was. I have no doubts that if Pavlik was at full strength he would have worn Hopkins down, hurting him badly and probably taken him out. Now, however, we’ll never know because he made the serious mistake of fighting while gravely ill. One would hope that when Hopkins hears this news, he’ll want to do the honorable thing and give Pavlik a rematch, not wanting a victory that was somehow tainted like it now appears to be.