By Chris Williams: It’s really sad that after three years as the WBC/WBO middleweight champion, Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO’s) will be facing his hardest challenge when he fights junior middleweight Sergio Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO’s) at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Pavlik hasn’t done much at all since winning the titles in 2007, beating Jermain Taylor by a 7th round knockout. Pavlik’s resume hasn’t been impressive since that time.
You can blame some of that on the poor opposition that inhabits the middleweight division nowadays, but a lot of the blame also has to come on Pavlik for not going out of his way to fight better opponents. Pavlik fought a rematch with Taylor, but it wasn’t a title fight. Pavlik also fought Bernard Hopkins, who promptly spanked Pavlik for 12 rounds in another non-title fight. As you can see, Pavlik has been busy setting up money fights for himself but not defending his title against any interesting opponents until now.
Tonight, I expect Pavlik to lose and lose badly, perhaps as bad as he did against Hopkins in 2008. Martinez is a much better skilled fighter with a lot more mobility and defensive skills compared to the slow moving Pavlik. This is the wrong kind of opponent at the wrong time for Pavlik. I think Pavlik might have had a better chance at beating Martinez if this fight had taken place three long years ago right after Pavlik had first beaten Taylor.
Pavlik was a little faster than, and seemingly a lot more confident. Since that time, Pavlik has suffered loss to Hopkins and a long illness resulting from his hand infection. Pavlik recently took care of the hand infection late last year and beat Miguel Espino by a 5th round knockout, but he didn’t look nearly as good as he did three years ago.
Pavlik’s best opponents have been Taylor and Hopkins, but unfortunately that’s about it. Hopkins beat Pavlik badly, and Taylor came close to beating Pavlik in their rematch. Had Taylor not run out of gas like he often does late in his fights, he might have pulled out a decision. But I think Martinez is going to have too much speed, and skills for Pavlik to deal with tonight, and I see Pavlik losing the fight and his title in the process.
It’s too bad that Pavlik hasn’t had the opposition to be really tested until now. I think he should have done all he could to make fights with Arthur Abraham and Felix Sturm happen, but after tonight, it will likely be too late for that when Pavlik loses his titles. He will then have to start from scratch as a contender and try to fight his way back into a title shot.
That may not be easy if he ends up fight top contenders Daniel Jacobs and Gennady Golovkin, because I think both of those guys would beat Pavlik rather easily. If Pavlik can avoid fighting them, then I think he can get a shot against IBF middleweight champion Sebastian Sylvester and beat him for his title. I think Martinez would beat Pavlik in a rematch and I also think Sturm would be too good for Pavlik as well.
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