Pavlik continues his comeback against Sigmon on June 8th

By Boxing News - 04/20/2012 - Comments

Image: Pavlik continues his comeback against Sigmon on June 8thBy Dan Ambrose: Kelly Pavlik (38-2, 33 KO’s) will be looking to add another win in his comeback on June 8th against Scott Sigmon (22-3, 12 KO’s) in a 10 round bout at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Pavlik, 30, will be fighting a day before fellow Top Rank fighter Manny Pacquiao fights on June 9th in his PPV fight on HBO against Timothy Bradley. With Pavlik’s fight against the little known Sigmon also occurring in Las Vegas, Pavlik is hoping that a lot of boxing fans will already be in Las Vegas for the Pacquiao fight and will check out his mismatch against Sigmon.

He could be right but I don’t expect there to be a ton of fans to see that fight because Pavlik has really dropped off the map in the past two years since losing his WBC and WBO titles to Sergio Martinez in 2010. Pavlik had a chance to turn things around by fighting IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute, but he decided not to take that fight.

He instead defeated fringe super middleweight contender Alfonso Lopez by a 10 round majority decision last year in May. In hindsight, it’s a good thing that Pavlik didn’t take the Bute fight because if he had fought the way he did against Lopez, Pavlik would have been handled easily by Bute.

Pavlik looks like a different fighter under the helm of his new trainer Robert Garcia in Oxnard, California. Pavlik is throwing more left hooks, and is fighting more on the move than he ever did in the past when he was known for being a slow plodder who fought flat-footed with a limited offensive arsenal. Pavlik is no longer a plodder, at least he didn’t look like one in his recent 2nd round TKO win over 3rd tier fighter Aaron Jaco last March. Pavlik was fighting on the move and showing a much different side of his game than he did in the past.

To be sure, Pavlik had the perfect opponent in front of him with the 35-year-old Jaco, because he looked too terrified to try and throw any punches of his own. But Pavlik seemed capable of using this new fighting style even against better opposition. Let’s hope he can, because he won’t go far at 168lbs if he’s not able to box and move because the division is loaded with talented fighters with hand speed, power and good size. Pavlik, 6’2″, doesn’t have a height advantage over a lot of the top fighters in the division unlike before when Pavlik was always the taller fighter at middleweight.