By William Mackay: Dan Rafael is reporting that WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO’s) could be facing light middleweight champion Sergio Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO’s) on April 17th. If this fight happens, it would easily be the best opponent that Pavlik has faced since he was schooled by 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins in a one-sided 12 round decision loss in October 2008. Nothing has yet been confirmed about this fight, but it would be great news if Pavlik does finally step it up again and fight someone really talented and exciting like Martinez.

It is unfortunate, though, that Pavlik has to fight an opponent a division smaller than him. However, you can’t really blame Pavlik if he does fight Martinez. The middleweight division is god awful right now with Pavlik holding down two of the titles and Felix Sturm and Sebastian Sylvester holding down the other two. The middleweight division is arguably going through a dry spell right now in terms of talented fighters.

Hopefully that will change as some of the younger fighters mature and take over for some of the mediocre champions. Pavlik missed out on a fight against Paul Williams in 2009 because of a staph infection on the left hand of Pavlik. The staph infection healed finally, only weeks after Pavlik’s bout with Williams was cancelled. Pavlik then went on to fight the little known, and badly over-matched Miguel Espino, taking him out in the 5th round in December 2009.

Pavlik, 27, has defended his WBC/WBO middleweight titles three times in three years, beating the following fighters: Gary Lockett, Marco Antonio Rubio and Espino. As I said, the middleweight division is going through a dry spell right now and until some better middleweights move up in the ranks, Pavlik would continue to feast on over-matched fodder.

However, the Martinez fight is one that could be genuinely a good fight, unless Martinez decides to run all night long. Martinez does well against sluggers and he could make Pavlik look as slow and limited as Hopkins did if he’s able to use his speed against Pavlik. Martinez had problems against Kermit Cintron, a welterweight with power similar to Pavlik.

Although Martinez should have probably won the fight by a knockout over Cintron after knocking him down with a left in the 9th round, there’s no question that Martinez had problems with the hard punching from Cintron during the fight. I had Martinez winning the fight by either knockout or decision. The judges ruled it a majority draw.