By Jason Kim: World Boxing Council/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO’s) and light middleweight Sergio Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO’s) have come to terms for a fight on April 17th at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, the contracts still have yet to be signed, but there isn’t anything expected to hold up this fight. For boxing fans frustrated with the lack of interesting fights for Pavlik since he won the WBC/WBO middleweight titles in 2007, they can feel happy about this fight.

This is clearly Pavlik’s most competitive fight in ages. According to Dan Rafael, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum [the promoter for [Pavlik] is waiting for the contract from Martinez’s promoter Lou Dibella to be sent back to him. Pavlik, 6’2”, will have a three inch height and reach advantage over Martinez. However, Pavlik is a lot slower than Martinez and isn’t as good at getting around the ring as the Argentinean fighter.

Martinez, 34, is coming off a controversial 12 round decision loss to 6’1” Paul Williams in December. Martinez was able to negate Williams’ huge reach advantage by using movement and speed to land almost at will against Williams for most of the fight. Pavlik is a little taller than Williams and fights in a different manner completely, using more of a traditional jab-right hand duo to do most of his damage.

Williams made the mistake of trying to get in close to Martinez and throw looping shots. It didn’t work well, as Martinez was able to land straight left hands and move out of the way of Williams’ shots. Pavlik could have equal problems do with Martinez due to his movement. Pavlik looked horrible in losing to 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins in 2008. All Hopkins did to get the win was circle Pavlik and come at him every now and then with fast combinations before moving away to the outside.

In fairness to Pavlik, Hopkins was roughly about the same size as Pavlik and didn’t have problems with his size like a lot of Pavlik’s recent over-matched opponents have been. Martinez, however, won’t be standing directly in front of Pavlik and making it easy for him. He’s going to be using his superior speed to give Pavlik problems, and unless Pavlik can figure out how to cut off the ring and speed up his slow feet, he could end up losing again. Pavlik is a great knockout puncher, but he’s not good at boxing. If this fight does to a decision, I can see Pavlik losing to Martinez.

Pavlik stands to gain a lot if he can get by Martinez. There’s the potential for Pavlik to face International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, who will be fighting on the same night on April 17th against former Pavlik opponent Edison Miranda. The Bute-Miranda will be shown as part of a doubleheader on HBO, but at a different site in Canada rather than Atlantic City.

In Pavlik’s last fight, he stopped Miguel Espino in the 5th round last December. Pavlik was supposed to have been fighting Paul Williams, but Pavlik was unable to take the fight because of a lingering infection on his left hand. Espino was the next best contender in the WBC middleweight division for Pavlik. Although the fight was exciting for as long as it lasted, it was another slaughter for Pavlik over a hapless, obscure opponent.

Thus far, Pavlik has defended his WBC/WBO titles against Gary Lockett, Marco Antonio Rubio and Espino. None of them are exactly household names as you guess, and probably did little in enhancing Pavlik’s reputation in the boxing world. Martinez will go a long ways to making up for the three miserable fights, but only if Pavlik wins and looks good in doing so.