By Eric Thomas: With WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik pulling out of a bout with Paul Williams for the second time due to a staph infection on his left hand, it left the 28-year-old Williams in need of a replacement opponent for his December 5th date. It appears that Williams, the interim World Boxing Organization light middleweight champion, has found perhaps even a better opponent the illness plagued Pavlik with WBC light middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (44-1-2, 24 KO’s) reportedly stepping in to take the bout with Williams.

This, as I say, may even be a better opponent than Pavlik because Martinez, 34, has several different gears to use and is a masterful fighter. Martinez isn’t just a one-paced fighter who stands directly in front of his opponents trying to take them out like Pavlik. Martinez likes to move around, keep his opponents guessing, making them miss and hitting them with fast combinations. Martinez’s style of fighting is similar to Roy Jones Jr. and Floyd Mayweather, although not as fast as either of them.

As of now, it’s unclear whether the bout will take place in Atlantic City, New Jersey, which was where the Pavlik vs. Williams fight was supposed to take place or whether the bout will be moved to Las Vegas, Nevada.

You got to give Williams a ton of credit for taking this fight because Martinez is a bigger, slicker version of Carlos Quintana, a fighter that gave Williams fits last year in beating Paul by a 12 round decision in February 2008. Martinez does everything better than Quintana and has better size and movement as well. Williams will have his work cut out for him in this fight because Martinez won’t be standing directly in front of Williams like many of Paul’s previous opponents.

This will also be a very difficult fight for Martinez. He is coming off a 12 round majority draw with Kermit Cintron in February of this year. And although Martinez should have won the fight by either a 9th round knockout or at the minimum by a 12 round decision, he still had problems with Cintron’s power. Martinez won’t have to worry about getting hit as hard in this fight because Williams doesn’t punch as hard as Cintron, but he’s going to have to make sure he throws enough punches to get the decision.

Williams will likely be outworking Martinez in most of the rounds, so he’s going to have throw enough punches to capture the rounds. Martinez won’t be able to win rounds by moving and land pot shots all night long because Williams will be following him and landing combinations. Martinez will have to stand and trade at certain strategic spots in the fight or else he’ll lose.

Williams will have a two inch height advantage over Martinez at 6’1” compared to 5’11” and a six inch reach advantage at 82” compared to 76. Neither factor will be that big of a deal. What may turn out to be the deciding factor in the fight is the work rate. Williams likes to throw a lot of punches and will no doubt be coming after Martinez constantly in the fight trying to outwork him.

Martinez will make Williams look bad at times, but I can’t see him beating a fighter like Williams based on landing pot shots. Some judges might give Martinez credit for doing that against lesser fighters, but I doubt they will give Martinez too many rounds unless he stands his ground and does some actual fighting.