By Chris Williams: WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO’s) has had three years to show his stuff as a champion and he’s been a major disappointment to many boxing fans, and not just because of all the missed fight due to his hand infection. Pavlik’s opposition has been mediocre at best. Pavlik has made the most of the situation beating what’s been fed to him, but I have seen Pavlik matched against any one interesting when he didn’t have a mandatory defense.

On April 17th, Pavlik faces Sergio Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO’s), a fighter with great skills, good hand speed and an ability to get out of the way of punches. We could be seeing a new champion on that night, and I wonder if it’s a good thing. Pavlik came into the title with a knockout win over Jermain Taylor in 2007, and there was so much promise. A lot of people felt that Pavlik was going to be an exciting fighter who took on the best opponents and showed off his devastating power.

Instead, boxing fans have had to sit through mismatches between Pavlik, Gary Lockett, Marco Antonio Rubio and Miguel Espino. Pavlik also fought Bernard Hopkins and got beaten badly by him. That loss was a big one for Pavlik, because that was the only really good opponent that Pavlik faced in the three years – besides a rematch against Taylor – that he’s held the title and he ended losing it.

The one fight that might have gone a long ways towards turning all that around was Pavlik’s planned fight with Paul Williams. But that fight went up in smoke after Pavlik’s lingering hand infection wiped out two fights. Williams, tired of waiting for Pavlik’s hand to heal, went in another direction and fought Martinez, beating him by a 12 round decision. Pavlik, for his part, took yet another easy fight, beating Espino.

Pavlik is now fighting his best opponent but doing it against a smaller fighter in light middleweight Martinez. With watching all of Pavlik’s boring fights the past three years and the fights that haven’t materialized, like Pavlik vs. Arthur Abraham and Pavlik vs. Felix Sturm, I’m not wondering if it would be a good thing if Martinez beats Pavlik. We would get some new blood and a fighter that hopefully would be willing to take on some interesting opponents.

In the past year, Martinez has fought arguably better opposition than Pavlik did in the past three years combined, if you take Hopkins out of the equation. I think Martinez will be an excellent champion if he can get the title. He seems like a fighter that is will to take on all comers no matter what. He proved that by stepping up against the 6’1” Williams and fighting him to a standstill last year in December. Martinez first has to get by Pavlik.

Martinez has to stay in motion the way that Hopkins did in his win over Pavlik. If Martinez stands in front of Pavlik for too long, he’s going to take a lot of unnecessary punishment and end up dropped. But if Martinez can stay on the move, the only thing he’ll have to worry about his Pavlik’s jab, which isn’t all that good. Martinez will pick Pavlik apart if he stays on the move and show how slow Kelly is. I think Martinez can do everything that Hopkins did in his win over Pavlik. There really hasn’t been any changes in Pavlik’s fighting style. He still comes at his opponents in straight lines, still plods around the ring and still has a limited offensive arsenal, which is most left-right combinations.