By Dan Ambrose: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik’s June 8th fight against Scott Sigmon (22-3, 12 KO’s) is now official. Pavlik, 30, will be fighting the 25-year-old Sigmon in a 10 round bout at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. This is the same kind of mismatch as Pavlik’s last fight against Aaron Jaco which ended with Pavlik stopping Jaco in the 2nd round on March 31.

Pavlik’s promoter Bob Arum is easing him back into action and it looks like he’s not going to be taking any chances whatsoever in putting him in with a life body. But in looking at Pavlik fight Jaco, he got nothing from that fight because it was him chasing a guy around the ring and punching him like a heavy bag. It was a total waste.

Sigmon won’t be any different. He’s never fought anyone before and in the 1st tier and he stands no chance at all in the fight. Pavlik will crush him in one or two rounds and get nothing from it. Pavlik will likely be fighting lower level opposition for the remainder of the year, and then hope to get a money fight against WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. next year. However, the way that this thing is working out, Pavlik will use up an entire year of his career facing these 3rd tier opponents before he MAYBE gets a shot against Chavez Jr.

There’s no guarantee that fight will happen because Chavez Jr. could be facing Sergio Martinez later on in the year, and Chavez Jr. loses that fight seven days week, 365 days a year, even in Texas. He’s a knockout waiting to happen for Martinez. In that case, I don’t think Bob Arum will want Pavlik to be fighting Martinez again because it’s a bad match-up for Pavlik. He’s too slow and will get eaten up and beaten up once again by Martinez. That’s a nice disaster waiting for Pavlik if gets brave and wants to all of a sudden try and avenge his loss to Martinez from 2010. Pavlik can’t avenge that defeat because Martinez is simply better than him and always will.

Back to the Simon opponent. He’s just one of your average run of the mill 3rd tier opponents for Pavlik. Nothing special about the guy. He’s fought nothing but 3rd tier opponents his entire career. Take a look at the records of Sigmon’s last four opponents: 26-20-1, 11-5, 35-14 and 18-13-1.