By Jim Dower: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) has been offered a choice spot on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Shane Mosley May 7th pay-per-view card at the MGM Grand, in Las Vegas, Nevada by his promoter Bob Arum.

For Pavlik, who was just released from alcohol rehab, this is a dream come true because he’ll get the opportunity to fight in front of a huge worldwide audience if he ends making it on the televised portion of the card.

Pavlik was supposed to have fought on Pacquiao’s last undercard of his fight with Antonio Margarito, but Pavlik pulled out of the fight to enter rehab.

Pavlik, decides to fight on the card, will likely face a 2nd tier opponent like the one he was supposed to fight last time Pacquiao fought. Arum likely won’t want to put Pavlik in with anyone too good because Pavlik just got out of rehab.

Another reason why he’s likely to take things slow with Pavlik is that he was beaten badly in his last bout against Sergio Martinez last April. Pavlik took a lot of punishment in that fight, and was cut badly over both eyes. He fought well during the middle portion of the fight but gassed out in the last four rounds and was riddled to pieces by Martinez.

All the same problems that Bernard Hopkins exposed in Pavlik were once again exposed in terms of a lack of variation to Pavlik’s offense, his problems with movement, and his inability to handle fast combinations being thrown at him. Pavlik is likely to continue to be plagued with these problems for the rest of his career, and it might be wise of Arum steers him away from Martinez or any other fast fighters.

Pavlik does good against plodders, slow types that just stand in front of him or attack him. If you put Pavlik in with those types, he’s going to win more often than not. He’s going to take punishment while getting the win but he’s hard to beat against those kinds of limited fighters.

Hopefully Arum doesn’t put Pavlik on right before the main event. It wouldn’t look good if the fight before the main event is a former champion like Pavlik beating up on some poor B level fighter. Pavlik needs to be farther down on the card where Arum has his mismatches between prospects and fodder type opponents.