By Eric Thomas: In the latest boxing news, WBO/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KO’s) sustained a knuckle injury to his left hand that is forcing him to cancel his October 3rdt bout against Paul Williams at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Pavlik’s middle knuckle has become infected and is too swollen for him to train properly, and will require an IV drip to help heal it. Depending on how well the injury heals, the bout will take place in late November or early December.

Pavlik, 27, really needs this fight to try and erase his shocking 12 round defeat against the 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins last year. Up until that fight, Pavlik was considered to be one of the best fighters in boxing. However, Hopkins badly outclassed Pavlik and made him look one-dimensional, slow and amateurish in their fight.

Following that defeat, which took place at a catch weight of 170, Pavlik didn’t help himself by fighting Marco Antonio Rubio, a little known middleweight who many boxing fans weren’t interested in seeing against Pavlik. As expected, Pavlik won the fight by an easy 9th round stoppage, but the victory did little to make boxing fans forget about his loss to Hopkins. The fight against Williams will give Pavlik a quality opponent that he needs to make fans forget about his loss to Hopkins, just as long as Pavlik can win the fight.

Cotto and Pacquiao interested in Diamond Belt

Promoter Bob Arum is saying that both Manny Pacquiao and World Boxing Organization welterweight champion Miguel Cotto want the newly created WBC Diamond belt to be available for their title fight on November 14th, according to Insidesports.ph. Apparently, Cotto and Pacquiao “are crazy with all the diamonds and everything” on the belt, Arum says.

The belt was created recently by the WBC and is designed for elite fighters, such as Cotto and Pacquiao, in catch weight bouts. As such, it looks as if the new Diamond belt, as well as Cotto’s WBO trinket will be on the line for their fight at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

It’s hard to say why the fighters would be interested in the Diamond belt, because it has new history behind it and it’s obviously been created to take advantage of the recent problems that that Cotto and Pacquiao have had about whether Cotto’s WBO title should be on the line or not.

Cotto, understandably, didn’t want to have his WBO title on the line against Pacquiao, because the bout is being held at a catch weight of 145, which is two pounds less than the maximum weight limit for the welterweight division. Pacquiao, who’s into trying to collect as many titles as he can, wants the title on the line so that he can try to collect his 7th title in seven different weight divisions.

The Diamond belt appears to be an invention created to take advantage of this problem. It seems like creation made just so that another sanctioning body can collect more sanctioning fees. It’s disappointing that Cotto and Pacquiao can’t see this, because whether they win this belt or not, boxing fans likely won’t care about it.