By Chris Williams: For the third time in the past year, boxing fans will be seeing World Boxing Council/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KO’s) facing what appears to be a badly overmatched opponent in Miguel Angel Espino (20-2-1, 9 KO’s). Pavlik will be facing Espino on Saturday night in a pay-per-view bout at the Beeghly Center, in Youngstown, Ohio.

I can’t say I’m excited about seeing Pavlik face Espino, and I’m much less interested in paying to see this on pay-per-view. This is not a fight that I’d want to pay to see, not when there’s a high possibility that Pavlik will knock Espino into the next stratosphere in a round or two. If I thought it would last six rounds, I still wouldn’t be interest in paying $34.95 to watch it.

I want entertainment, meaning I want a fight that I feel is going to be competitive. Now Espino may have a fine record at first glance. 20-2 looks good on paper, but when you take a close look at who Espino has fought – or in this case, who he hasn’t fought – it’s more than a little off putting. Espino is ranked number #3 by the WBC, but I can’t see one top tier fighter that he’s beaten amongst his 20 wins.

I do see some losses to Peter Manfredo Jr. and Daniel #Edouard, Espino’s two best opponents of his career. I’m sorry, but that tells me that Espino is probably going to get beaten badly by Pavlik on Saturday night. I don’t know why the WBC has ranked Espino so highly given his inexperience against top level opposition, but I know that I personally don’t want to pay to see Pavlik beat up on a fighter who I feel lacks the credentials to be fighting him at this stage.

I wouldn’t mind so much if this was free fight or if Espino had at least proven himself against other top tier fighters like Gennady Golovkin, Winky Wright, Daniel Jacobs and Anthony Mundine, to name just a few fighters, but he hasn’t.

I don’t really like seeing Pavlik in yet another easy fight. He already beat up little known fighters Gary Locektt and Marco Antonio Rubio, and then got the stuffing beaten out of him in a non-middleweight bout against Bernard Hopkins. After those fights, I’m ready to see Pavlik fight a quality fighter with both talent and experience. But if he’s going to continue to fight opponents that I consider to be lesser fighters, then I don’t want to pay to see the fights. When does it end?

I thought Pavlik was going to fight Paul Williams, but then all of a sudden Pavlik’s bad had, which has been plagued by a persistent staph infection for much of 2009, flared up again at the exact worst possible time. Now instead of seeing the Williams-Pavlik bout, we have to see Pavlik fight Espino. I don’t mind watching it, but I don’t feel good about paying to see it and I’m not going to. I honestly don’t know that I would even want to see this fight if it were free. I’m tired of seeing Pavlik fight over-matched opponents and only want to see him in with a live body like Williams.