By Eric Thomas: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik will be fighting on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao vs. Shane Mosley fight on May 7th against Alphonso Lopez in a 10 round bout. The fight will be the first for Pavlik since he was schooled by then challenger Sergio Martinez last year in April in a bloody one-sided 12 round decision loss for Pavlik.
Pavlik now will be looking to get back to the winning ways against the over-matched Lopez at super middleweight. Pavlik, 28, has filled out his lean 6’2” frame can no longer make the 160 pound middleweight division without drastically dieting and training hard to melt down to his old weight.
Pavlik walks around from the low 180s to the mid-190s, and that’s an in shape Pavlik. It doesn’t take a genius to see that Pavlik will soon not be able to make even 168. He may feel drained even at that weight, and it wouldn’t be surprising because he’ll have to shed a lot of water weight to get down to 168 for the Lopez fight in May. Pavlik will likely have to move up another division real soon by moving up to 175 to fight a light heavyweight.
Pavlik should be able to beat Lopez in May unless he’s better than people say he is. Going forward into the future, Pavlik says he wants to fight WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm and he thinks it can happen at a catchweight. It’s a fight that might be slightly interesting to the U.S. boxing public, but it would be huge in Germany, where Sturm fights and is well respected.
It would be a nice fight if Pavlik could get it. However, Sturm is doing well fighting carefully selected opponents in Germany, and it’s hard to imagine that Sturm will want to break from that routine to take on someone like Pavlik who would have a good chance at beating him. Sure, there is a slight chance that Sturm will want to take a risky bout against Pavlik if the money is good, but not likely.
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