By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (37-2, 32 KO’s) should be speaking up and putting his promoter Bob Arum under big time pressure to try and weasel a fight against fellow Top Rank fighter WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. (45-0-1, 31 KO’s).

Pavlik’s career really needs a shot in the arm right now, and he certainly was a much better middleweight champion than the 26-year-old Chavez Jr. can ever hope to be. Pavlik was the guy at middleweight until losing his two titles to Sergio Martinez by a 12 round decision in April 2010. Pavlik isn’t a shot fighter after that loss, and just because he’s had some issues with social drinking, it doesn’t mean he’s over the hill all of a sudden.

Pavlik would be perfect for Chavez Jr. and a lot better fight than seeing Chavez Jr. beat up on Antonio Margarito on June 2nd. I don’t want to see that fight, and I’d much prefer to see Pavlik fight Chavez Jr. on that date rather than Andy Lee, who Arum has also mentioned as a possible candidate to matched against Chavez Jr. Pavlik right now is training with Robert Garcia, his new trainer, in Oxnard, California. Pavlik is moving up in weight to super middleweight, but he says he’s available to fight at middleweight if the right fight came along and presented itself to him. The fight he needs to go after is a fight against Chavez Jr. and I don’t know why Arum doesn’t want to put that fight together. Pavlik is a much better choice for Chavez Jr. than putting him in with the near shot Margarito. There’s no comparison. Pavlik is still very much a live and dangerous for anyone at 160 to 168.

It’s sad that Arum isn’t utilizing the more talented Pavlik to match him against Chavez Jr. and/or Margarito. But I guess Pavlik would finish off Margarito and likely send him into retirement with a brutal stoppage and would likely give Chavez Jr. such a one-sided beating that HBO would stop airing his fights.