By William Mackay: Former World Boxing Council/World Boxing Organization middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) wants a rematch with Sergio Martinez (45-2-2, 24 KO’s) to try and avenge his 12 round unanimous decision defeat Pavlik suffered last Saturday night and to try and recapture his lost titles. I think is a bad idea for Pavlik. While I admire Pavlik for wanting to try and regain his titles so quickly, I think he’s stupid for trying to fight Martinez again so soon without making some major changes in his defense and offensive boxing skills.
I was hoping that when Pavlik said he wanted a rematch with Martinez that maybe he wasn’t thinking straight given how many punches he absorbed in the fight. Martinez basically undressed Pavlik 12 rounds, hitting him at will at from the 9th round on with shots. Pavlik was nearly defensiveness, just taking shots and bleeding all over creation. It was sad and disappointing to see a fighter that was once considered to by many to be the best fighter in the middleweight division reduced to a bleeding wreck by the much faster Martinez.
My thoughts are that Pavlik is going to go ahead and fight Martinez, take another royal beating of the first order and then wind up a gatekeeper in the middleweight division. Pavlik will be joining Jermain Taylor and Edison Miranda as gatekeepers and will no longer be considered the force that he once was. What Pavlik needs to do instead is move up in weight one or perhaps two divisions to either super middleweight or light heavyweight. Christ, Pavlik weighted 178 for last Saturday’s fight, which is three pounds over the light heavyweight limit.
I don’t know what Pavlik ate to get that big, but he needs to put down the fork if he wants to stay at middleweight. That was probably the dumbest thing he could do – coming into the fight at 178 against a quick, agile fighter like Martinez. I couldn’t plan for a worse thing to do to help him lose the fight than to put on 18 pounds of bloat and then waddle out into the ring and try to beat one of the quickest fighters in the light middleweight division.
Pavlik is probably sorry for it now, but I think he’s going to be sorry in the future if he does go ahead and use his rematch clause to get an immediate rematch with Martinez instead of moving up in weight, or at the very least, picking someone that is more suited towards his style of fighting. If you’re a slow plodder with basic boxing skills like Pavlik, the last thing you want to do is face a quick fighter like Martinez. And you especially don’t want to bloat up to 178 and then try to fight him. I think Pavlik could end up sabotaging his career again if he fights Martinez once more.
Pavlik already screwed up by moving up two divisions to face the faster Bernard Hopkins two years ago. Pavlik is still trying to regain his lost fans from that fight. And who knows what the loss did to Pavlik’s self confidence. It was a bad mistake to make that fight. And here Pavlik is making more mistakes by fighting Martinez and considering a rematch. I see another fight with Martinez as a career-killer for Pavlik. He’ll probably take the fight because of his belief that he can recapture his glory days, but he’ll be sorry for it when he takes another loss.
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