By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) has the opportunity for a high visibility good money fight against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute (27-0, 22 KO’s) if Pavlik can get by his next opponent, the hard hitting but limited Brian Vera (17-5, 11 KO’s) next month on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Antonio Margarito card at the Cowboys Stadium, in Arlington, Texas. HBO and Bute’s promoters are interested in facing Pavlik should he be able to get past Vera. However, there’s a lot of unknowns out there before the Bute-Pavlik fight can be made.

First off, Pavlik got badly beaten in his last fight against Sergio Martinez in April, and ended up losing the fight by a 12 round decision, along with his titles. Pavlik was cut up over both eyes and looked very average in that fight. Martinez beat Pavlik at his own game by standing in front of him and battering him with combinations. The difference in that fight was that while Pavlik was limited to his 1-2 combinations, which he would throw over and over again in his predictable manner, Martinez was responding with three and four punch combinations.

Pavlik ended up getting cut in the fight and fading late as his face was a pool of blood. Vera will have watched Pavlik’s loss to Martinez and will be looking to reopen the scar tissue around Pavlik’s now vulnerable eyes. If Pavlik is forced to fight with partial vision from cuts, he’s going to have problems with the power of Vera. Although Vera is limited in terms of boxing skills, he can punch harder than Martinez and will be a problem for Pavlik unless he can get him out of there before his eyes are cut up.

As for Bute, I have my doubts that Pavlik’s promoter Bob Arum will risk putting Pavlik in with Bute for what would be an almost certain loss. I don’t know of anyone that believes that Pavlik can beat Bute. More likely, Pavlik will sustain another Bernard Hopkins and Martinez-type beating and end up looking terribly limited and one dimensional in a lopsided loss. Pavlik is still a good fighter when matched against the right opponent.

He’s probably not good enough to beat most of the middleweight champions, but I can see him beating IBF middleweight champion Sebastian Sylvester, the fighter that many boxing fans feel is the weakest of the middleweight champions. Pavlik clearly isn’t the best in the middleweight division anymore, as the division has improved greatly in the past two years while Pavlik’s skills have seemingly declined.