By Manuel Perez: Kelly Pavlik (34-1, 30) comes into the fight having lost his last fight against an old Bernard Hopkins in his last fight and outclassed in every sense of the word, whereas Marco Antonio Rubio (43-4-1, 37 KOs) is coming off a gritty 12-round split decision over Enrique Ornelas in the WBC middleweight title eliminator match in October. In class, it would seem that Pavlik is a head above Rubio due to his incredible punching power and excellent chin, but Pavlik was made to look so bad in his last fight that anything is possible on Saturday.
Pavlik will be in front of a large home audience in Youngstown, Ohio, and will be pressing hard to try and impress his fans and erase the doubts in their minds, and perhaps his own by trying hard to knock Rubio out as quick as possible. But, Rubio has worked his nine year professional career to get to this point and will be putting everything he has into this fight to try and score an upset.
Rubio, 28, has more things going for him than many people thing. His power isn’t quite on the level of Pavlik, but then again it’s better than Hopkins and is close to that of Jermain Taylor, who succeeded in putting Pavlik down in the 2nd round of their first fight two years ago in 2007.
Rubio’s speed may not be nearly as good as Taylor and Hopkins, but he may not need a lot of speed if he can dictate terms on the outside adding a little movement. You can’t say enough how bad Pavlik looked against Hopkins, because it was truly a bad performance by Kelly. Once Hopkins had Pavlik breaking down mentally, it seemed as if he collapsed completely, giving up on himself.
While he sees it as an off night, you can break down as badly as he did without there being a problem that can occur again if Rubio uses the same kind of strategy against Pavlik. It won’t be as hard as people think it may be, because Hopkins showed what to do with Pavlik. Use a little movement, throw a few jabs and quick combinations, tie him up and you’ve essentially neutralized Pavlik’s offense.
The trick is that Rubio has to do it long enough, say seven or eight rounds, until Pavlik gives up on himself again like he did against Hopkins and mentally breakdown. It’s certainly possible. Rubio will be looking to exploit Pavlik’s one direction offense by using speed to keep him from getting set with his offense.
Pavlik is mostly a one-two, left-right combination type of guy who lacks a wide variety of punches and looks like other fighters. The way for Rubio to beat him is to avoid standing in front of him like his other opponents like Edison Miranda and Taylor mistakenly did.
If Rubio can move just enough, jab, throw combinations and let his strong chin take the few shots that Pavlik can get through, then I give Rubio an excellent chance at winning this fight.
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