By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (37-2, 32 KO’s) takes a skills sharpening fight against Darryl Cunningham (23-2, 10 KO’s) this Saturday night in a 10 round bout that Pavlik hopes will knock off enough rust for him to challenge IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute in November.

Pavlik-Cunningham takes place at the Coeveli Center in Pavlik’s home city of Youngstown, Ohio. Pavlik wants to fight the big fighters like Bute and Carl Froch, but he may not be ready for them.

Pavlik has to impress in this fight above all. He can’t have another performance like the last one where he struggled to beat a fringe contender Alfonso Lopez by a 10 round majority decision last May. Pavlik barely won the fight and looked slow and old. Pavlik really needs three to five tune-ups before taking on a fighter as good as Bute, because Pavlik looked fatally flawed in the the Lopez and in his loss to Sergio Martinez in his fight before that.

Bute will expose all of Pavlik’s faults in a big way unless he starts showing some improvement. Cunningham won’t be much of a threat to Pavlik, because he’s a couple steps down from Lopez and doesn’t have great foot speed like Lopez or the ability to fight on the move. Pavlik has been set up with a plodder for this fight and he should do well in this fight. If not, then Pavlik is in for a long night against Bute in November. Ideally, Pavlik’s promoters, Top Rank, should try and steer Pavlik towards the slower, more stationary Froch rather than taking on a guy with good movement like Bute.