By Chris Williams: WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO’s) faces easily his best opponent since winning his middleweight titles three years ago when he steps in the ring against junior middleweight Sergio Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO’s) on April 17th at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This fight has a lot riding on for the 27-year-old Pavlik, because if he wins, he could find himself in bouts against WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm later on in 2010, a possible fight against old war horse Winky Wright or fight against International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion Lucian Bute.
And if that’s not enough, there’s talk of Pavlik also fighting the winner of the Super Six tournament next year. That’s a lot of things to have on Pavlik’s plate, and as excruciatingly awful as Pavlik looked in losing a 12 round decision fight against 44-year-old Bernard Hopkins in October 2008, you have to really think positive to see Pavlik winning any of those fighters other than the bout against the non-offensively inclined Sturm.
Bute, Wright, and the Super Six winner will likely all be a step too far for slugger Pavlik. But first things first, Pavlik has to get by the 5’11” Martinez on April 17th. This may not be an easy task for Pavlik, because even though he’ll have a three inch height advantage over Martinez, he’ll actually be giving up an inch in reach to the Argentinean fighter.
As we saw in Martinez’s recent fight against Paul Williams, size means nothing for Martinez. His hand speed and movement is so extraordinary that it doesn’t matter if he’ll be giving up a little in the size department to the straight-up fighting Pavlik. The real question for this fight is whether Pavlik’s huge power will be enough of a problem for Martinez that Kelly is somehow able to pull out a decision.
Pavlik doesn’t have a nonstop high pressure style of fighting that Martinez had problems with in his 7th round stoppage loss to a young Antonio Margarito 10 years ago in 2010. Pavlik is rather slow and methodical, and tends to plod around the ring in straight lines. Pavlik doesn’t handle lateral movement well, as we witnessed in his lopsided 12 round decision loss to Hopkins in 2008.
Martinez is a much better mover than Hopkins, so Pavlik really has his work cut out for him in the Martinez fight. Martinez did have problems in his 12 round draw against big punching Kermit Cintron last year in February, but then again, Cintron showed some halfway decent boxing ability in that fight. But even though Cintron fought well at times and was able to get a draw, he appeared to get knocked out by Martinez after getting dropped by a left hand in the fight.
The referee blew the call and gave Cintron the benefit of the doubt after Cintron complained that the knockdown occurred from a head clash and not a punch. Martinez also lost a point by clinching in the final round, even though he hadn’t received any prior warnings for this.
If Pavlik can get by Martinez, then we could be seeing Pavlik go after Sturm next. Pavlik won’t be facing Paul Williams, unfortunately, because Williams wants a 50-50 of the revenues for a fight against Pavlik, and that’s not something that Pavlik’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank is going to agree to. The Sturm will be interesting if Pavlik’s management can line it up. But it’s hard to get excited about a Pavlik vs. Winky Wright fight because of Wright’s advanced age.
Winky is 38, and by the time that he and Pavlik fight, he could be 39. I’ve already see Pavlik get dominated by a fighter over 40, but I don’t think I want to see him take on another old guy and get humiliated again. If I want to see Pavlik get embarrassed, I’d rather see him fight a super middleweight like Bute, Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler or Andre Dirrell, all super Six tournament fighters.
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