By Jason Kim: 29-year-old former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (37-2, 32 KO’s) has reportedly contacted his manager Cameron Dunkin telling him that he wants to get back in the ring as soon as possible to try and restart his stalled boxing career. Pavlik, who recently went through alcohol rehab, hasn’t fought since struggling to a 10 round majority decision win over little known Alfonso Lopez last May.

According to news from Dan Rafael at ESPN, Dunkin contacted Top Rank president Todd duBoef about putting a fight together. duBoef wants to meet with Pavlik and his trainer Jack Leow to see what he can put together.

Pavlik lost his titles last year in a 12 round decision loss to Sergio Martinez in April 2010. He’s talked about moving up to super middleweight (168 lbs) due to his struggles to make the 160 lb limit. However, Pavlik is much better off at middleweight than he is at super middleweight, because there are too many fine athletes at that weight and Pavlik, with his plodding style of fighting, will likely have a ton of problems against the faster fighters.

Pavlik blew a perfect opportunity a couple of months ago when he turned down $50,000 to fight 2nd tier fighter Darryl Cunningham in Pavlik’s home city of Youngstown, Ohio. This was a fight setup for Pavlik’s proposed match-up with IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, which would have taken place in November 2011 and payed Pavlik $1.35 million. Pavlik felt that wasn’t enough money for him, so he walked away from both fights.

Pavlik has now had a change of tune, saying this to his manager Dunkin “I will fight for $10,000. It’s not about money. I really want to do this.”