By Jason Kim: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) is interested in facing Chad Dawson at light heavyweight, according to Dan Rafael of ESPN. The 28-year-old Pavlik decided on Monday not to use his rematch clause with Sergio Martinez, who defeated Pavlik by a 12 round unanimous decision on April 17th to win his two middleweight belts. Pavlik no longer can fight comfortably in the middleweight division without drastically draining himself of muscle in order to get down to the 160 pound middleweight limit. He’s reportedly walking around at between 178 and 191 between fights, with most of the weight being muscle.

Taking that weight off to get down to the middleweight division has had a debilitating effect on Pavlik, as we saw in his fight against Martinez last month. According to Dan Rafael, Pavlik’s trainer Jack Loew wants to match Pavlik against unbeaten light heavyweight Chad Dawson (29-0, 17 KO’s). Loew says “I think Chad Dawson and Kelly Pavlik would be a very interesting fight. Chad is a great kid and fighter. I think that would be a great fight for him and Kelly. Maybe we’ll be sitting ringside for Pascal-Dawson.”

That sounds like a much better idea for Pavlik then moving up to the super middleweight division and having problems chasing around the quicker fighters like Lucian Bute, Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell in fights. Those would be very difficult fights for Pavlik, because those fighters move even better than Sergio Martinez and have bigger size, better hand speed and power. Dawson at least is beatable because he has a bad habit of letting his opponents get off their shots and he also likes to cover up on the ropes for extended periods during his fights. If he does that against Pavlik, he could be in deep trouble. Pavlik would force Dawson to work hard for 12 rounds or else he could get stopped.