By Eric Thomas: Kelly Pavlik had the great idea to bail on his scheduled fight for this Saturday against Darryl Cunningham, a fight that was going to be televised on Showtime in the United States. The bout was supposed to help get the 29-year-old Pavlik ready for a possible good paying fight against IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute in November.

Pavlik, who is no longer holds any world title belts, was going to get $50,000 for the Cunningham fight. Those may not sound like a lot but Pavlik isn’t a champion and he’s the one that wanted to take on an unknown fighter like Cunningham. Pavlik shouldn’t expect a big payday for this kind of bout.

Pavlik bailed on the Bute fight as well, reportedly angry that Mikkel Kessler was offered over $3 million, while his offer was only $1.35 million. Whether it’s true or not that Kessler was given the bigger offer, Pavlik didn’t do himself any favors by deciding he won’t take the Cunningham and Bute fights, because it’s not like he’s going to get huge money given to him to fight other guys.

Pavlik needs to face the facts that he’s struggling at this point in his career and needs to downsize what he feels he deserves in terms of pay. Fighters that are on the decline often see their purses go down as well, and it’s up to Pavlik to work his way back to the top.

By pulling out on this fight it could hurt Pavlik’s ability to set up fights in the future because few big named fighters are going to want to take a chance on fighting a guy that could flake at any moment.

Pavlik needs to try and get back in the ring as soon as possible. He’s got to prove that he’s someone that can be trusted to make it to a fight without backing out. He still needs a couple of tune-ups before facing quality opposition, because he looked nothing short of awful in his last two fights. Pavlik can pretty much forget about a fight with Bute after this.