Pavlik faces tough test against Martinez on April 17th

By Boxing News - 04/07/2010 - Comments

By Sean McDaniel: WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO’s) will be dealing with an altogether completely different fighter from what he’s grown accustomed to in the form of Sergio Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO’s), who the 28-year-old Pavlik will be fighting on April 17th at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Martinez, 35, is coming off a recent close defeat at the hands of Paul Williams last December.

The loss was one of those defeats in which the fighter losing the bout comes off better than the winner, as Martinez, 5’11”, looked masterful in boxing the taller 6’1”, landing counter shots all night long and negating almost entirely Williams’ six inch reach advantage that he had over him. Pavlik, in a lot of ways, is slower version of Williams, but with more power. Pavlik doesn’t move as well as Williams, though, and doesn’t cover the same kind of ground that Williams is capable of.

Martinez, a quick and elusive fighter, is going to present big problems for Pavlik, who has had things pretty easy for him because of the mediocre opposition that he’s faced since winning the WBC/WBO middleweight titles from Jermain Taylor in 2007. You can’t blame Pavlik for the opponents that he’s had to face. The sanctioning bodies have seen fit to rank the guys that Pavlik has fought in the top 10, and Pavlik has had no choice but to fight them or else risk losing his title.

It’s just really unfortunate for Pavlik that he hasn’t had a big named opponent for him to fight within the WBC and WBO, so that he could get more attention from boxing fans. Pavlik was forced in 2008 to look for a big named opponent out of his weight class in fighting light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins. The fight was a disaster for Pavlik, because he couldn’t deal with Hopkins’s fast hands, movement and clinching. Pavlik ended up losing badly to Hopkins and has been regrouping since then.

Pavlik hasn’t had a talented enough opponent until now to give him the chance to redeem himself with the boxing public. Pavlik will do well against Martinez if he tries to match power shots with Pavlik. However, that’s not likely to be the case. Martinez likes to hit and run like Floyd Mayweather, and he won’t be giving Pavlik as many opportunities as he’s grown accustomed to getting lately in his fights against Marco Antonio Rubio and Miguel Espino.

This could turn out really badly for Pavlik if he isn’t able to track Martinez down and force him to fight his fight. Martinez looked awfully tough against Williams, showing both speed and power in that fight. Plus, Martinez’s southpaw stance makes him even tougher to figure out. Pavlik hasn’t faced southpaw since his fight with Bronco McKart way back in 2006, and Pavlik had problems with McKart in that fight.

Martinez isn’t the type of fighter that Pavlik is going to be able to simply destroy like he has his last two opponents. It’s going to take some skills on Pavlik’s part to beat Martinez. The question is does Pavlik have the needed skills to beat Martinez?



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