By Chris Williams: At today’s weigh-in, World Boxing Council/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KO’s) weighed in at 160 for tomorrow night’s bout against number #3 ranked WBC contender Migue Angel Espino (20-2-1, 9 KO’s) at the Beeghly Center, in Youngstown, Ohio. Most people assume that the fight will be a gross mismatch, pointing to Espino’s lack of experience at the upper level and his two losses when he did attempt to fight 1st tier fighters. Still, the WBC has gone ahead and ranked Espino at number #3, even though Espino’s wins have come against 2nd tier opposition.

Pavlik has been out of action for the past 10 months nursing a hand infection that has kept him out of action until now. In his last fight, Pavlik stopped Marco Antonio Rubio, another over-matched opponent. Prior to that, Pavlik received a boxing lesson against 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins. Luckily for Pavlik, most of the opposition in the middleweight division is dreary without much talent.

Pavlik will be trying to make up for lost time on Saturday night by taking Espino out in an impressive fashion in an effort to win back fans. Pavlik should win this fight easily, but it’s hard to tell right now how much of an effect that will have on bringing back boxing fans that abandoned Pavlik following his humiliating loss to Hopkins.

The reason is because many people see Espino as a soft opponent, a fighter that perhaps doesn’t even belong in the 1st tier. Espino was previously beaten by Peter Manfredo Jr. and Daniel Edouard. Pavlik may need a better opponent than this to win back fans. Pavlik has already beaten fighters similar to Espino in Gary Lockett and Rubio, so this fight might not be the one that Pavlik is looking for if he wants to wow the fans. Pavlik needs to go after more talented fighters like Paul Williams if he wants to impress boxing fans.

Pavlik was poised to fight Williams, but after two cancellations, Williams had enough with waiting for the bout and went in a different direction and fought Sergio Martinez instead. Pavlik needs to try and stay infection and injury free after the Espino fight, and start taking on a higher class of opponents in the middleweight division.

Even in the past, names like John Duddy were being considered for Pavlik. That might be a good fight for Pavlik to get a payday against, but it likely wouldn’t be an entertaining fight for boxing fans, especially when they probably have to pay to see a mismatch like that. Tomorrow night, boxing fans will have to pay $39.95 if they want to see Pavlik’s fight against Espino.

It doesn’t look like too many fans are enthusiastic about paying to see the Pavlik card judging from the negative comments on various internet boxing forums when asked if they would be willing to purchase the card. the undercard is decent, but not enough to justify paying that kind of money when the main even is such a mismatch.

Other weights on the card:

Matt Korobov 150, Ken Dunham 152
Sam Peter 240, Gabe Brown 363
Vanes Martirosyan 153, Willie Lee 152.5