By Eric Thomas: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (37-2, 32 KO’s) will reportedly be looking to fight a tune-up bout in August to help get Pavlik ready for a possible big money fight against someone like IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute later on before the end of the year. Pavlik, 29, has only fought once since getting out of the Betty Ford clinic to take care of some alcohol related issues and looked dreadful in struggling to beat unknown Alfonso Lopez last May.

In looking at how bad Pavlik fought against Lopez, it might not be a bad idea if Pavlik had five or six tune-ups, not just one before stepping it up against a higher class of fighter. Lopez is hardly a world beater, yet he exposed Pavlik for all the same flaws that Sergio Martinez and Bernard Hopkins had revealed. Pavlik is still pretty much a 1-2 combination fighter, who has problems with movement, hand speed and throwing combinations. If he were to fight Bute or one of the other top super middleweights for that matter, it might not go well for Pavlik. He needs a lot of work before he faces real quality guys. The Lopez fight was a bad sign for Pavlik that he’s still the same fighter that Martinez whipped last year.

There are a number of fighters that are interested in fighting Pavlik, such as James DeGale, Bute and Mikkel Kessler. However, don’t count on Pavlik facing any of those guys in August. Pavlik might be able to beat an inexperienced guy like DeGale, who is coming off of a narrow loss to George Groves, but then again Pavlik might also end losing to him. Whoever Pavlik is matched against, expect it to be someone below the level of his last opponent Lopez. Their not likely not going to take chances with Pavlik and put him in with a decent fighter only to see him get beat. I expect Pavlik to be put in with a nice B, possibly C class fighter so that he can get his confidence up before he’s matched against a Bute, Kessler or DeGale later in the year. I think it won’t help much no matter who he faces though. Pavlik will be Pavlik and he’s going to have problems when he’s eventually matched tough.