By Chris Williams: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) believes that Shane Mosley could knock Manny Pacquiao out next month on May 7th at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada. Pavlik thinks Mosley could get to Pacquiao in the first four rounds to score a knockout. However, if Mosley isn’t able to take Pacquiao out in that amount of time, Pavlik sees Pacquiao coming on and getting the better of Mosley in the later rounds with his better stamina.

I see things a little different. I give Mosley two rounds at the most to try and score a miracle knockout. If the KO doesn’t happen, he’ll go into vapor luck and get battered for the next 10 rounds. Mosley is old now at 39, and Pacquiao’s team know full well what they have in him. Mosley is a two round fighter now at this point in his career, and incapable of fighting at a world class level after the 2nd round. Pacquiao will survive the first two rounds by moving a lot and landing occasional pot shots. Once Mosley fades in the 3rd round, Pacquiao will turn him into another Antonio Margarito punching bag to beat up on for the remainder of the fight.

Pavlik, 29, is fighting on the undercard of the Pacquiao-Mosley fight against some unknown fighter by the name of Alfonzo Lopez (21-0, 16 KO’s). Pavlik will easily win this fight because Lopez, 28, has built his inflated record on C and D level fighters. Of course, the casual fans who pay to watch to Pacquiao-Mosley fight card probably won’t realize that and some of them will mistakenly think that Pavlik is being matched against a real quality fighter.

We saw what happened the last time Pavlik was put in with a quality fighter when he was totally dominated by Sergio Martinez in a bloody 12 round decision loss last year in April. Pavlik is probably going to be fed some tomato cans for a while until he gets his fighting legs back under him and then they’ll go after one of the super middleweight contenders. I seriously doubt they’ll be putting Pavlik in with anyone even remotely good in the near future.