By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) starts his experiment at super middleweight this Saturday night fighting on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao – Shane Mosley against Alfonso Lopez (21-0, 16 Ko’s) in what Pavlik hopes will be an impressive performance.

His promoter Bob Arum has picked a slugger out for him to look good against in his first bout at 168. Pavlik won’t have to deal with anyone that will show him any kind of movement and make Pavlik use his feel to change directions. That will come later when Pavlik is put in with the quality fighters at super middleweight.

Pavlik is moving up in weight because of his difficulties at making the 160 limit for middleweight. He seems to have out-grown the division and has problems getting down to the weight without draining himself in the process.

However, Pavlik may end up struggling even worse at super middleweight due to many fighters there are at this weight with exceptional boxing skills and hand speed. Pavlik was exposed at middleweight in fights against Bernard Hopkins and Sergio Martinez. Those guys used a lot of fast combinations and in and out attacks to rip Pavlik apart and dominate him.

Pavlik will have to face similar fighters at super middleweight and prove that he can beat them or else his stay at this weight will be a bitter one filled with failure. We’ve seen recently how Arthur Abraham, a former middleweight champion like Pavlik, couldn’t cut it at super middleweight.

There’s talk of Abraham moving back down in weight to the middleweight division after the Super Six tournament is over for him. Like Pavlik, Abraham had problems making the 160 pound middleweight division and moved up in weight to have more room.

Pavlik says he feels stronger at super middleweight and is supposedly throwing more combinations that he ever did before. We’ll see about that. Pavlik will get a chance to shine against Lopez but he’s going to have to show that he can move around the ring against fighters that have boxing ability. Beating Lopez won’t prove anything other than that Pavlik can beat weaker opposition that is picked for him to look good against.