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. Previously, it was thought that Abraham would be going after a match with WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm, but apparently the money isn’t there for a fight between the two German-based fighters.
Besides, the bout wouldn’t likely make as much money as unification bout between Abraham and Pavlik would, a fight which likely takes place in the U.S., if the arrangements can be ironed out between the two fighters. Pavlik, 26, was recently beaten badly by 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins in a lopsided 12-round unanimous decision loss on October 18th at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
The fight was never close to speak of, and there seemed to be inevitability about the outcome after Hopkins dominated the first two rounds of the fight. Most boxing experts picked Pavlik to win the fight, but he was badly out-gunned by the faster, more highly skilled Hopkins. For Pavlik, it was a humiliating fight and he was thoroughly schooled by Hopkins in virtually every round of the fight.
Right now, Pavlik’s stock has dropped off dramatically following the loss, and he might as have dropped off the boxing map, because his name is rarely mentioned since the defeat, and when it is, it’s often in mocking tones. If Pavlik ever needed a big win, it’s right now. He has a title defense coming up against his number #1 WBC contender Marco Antonio Rubio, but that fight won’t undo the damage that has been done by Hopkins, probably no matter how well Pavlik looks in getting rid of the largely unknown Rubio.
So, yeah, Pavlik needs a big win over a big named opponent, and a fight against Abraham would be the perfect fight to start down the road to undoing some of the damage that was done from the loss to Hopkins. That’s not to say that a win over Abraham will be able to erase the stigma from the defeat, but it will undo some of the damage at least.
For Pavlik to be fully brought back to what he was, he’s going to need to continue winning for the next 3-5 years, and hope he can line up as many big-named opponents like Abraham as possible for which he can resurrect his reputation. Under the best scenario, Pavlik would lure Hopkins into giving him a rematch as fast as possible, so as to avoid giving Hopkins as excuse about his age being a factor, and then beating him badly to clear his name.
Right now, that doesn’t seem possible, because Hopkins won’t fight him again due to the one-sided nature of the fight, and likewise, the big cable companies wouldn’t be interested in showing another fight between Hopkins and Pavlik.
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