By Jim Dower: In a card filled with mismatches, former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (39-2, 34 KO’s) battered a badly over-matched Scott Sigmon (22-4, 12 KO’s) on Friday night for seven sickening to watch rounds before the fight was finally halted after the 7th round in their fight at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The fight was halted because Sigmon was a bloody punching bag, his nose bleeding, and him not throwing many punches back. He spent much of the fight smothering Pavlik and his own power by staying close to Pavlik on the inside. While this may have saved Sigmon from taking Pavlik’s biggest shots, it did cause him to get with a lot of shots from Pavlik.

Sigmon likely would have been stopped much earlier had he stayed on the outside, he was going to get stopped anyway. He might as well have gone down swinging by keeping the fight on the outside where he could at least try to get some leverage into his shots. Pavlik didn’t seem to mind fighting on the inside, because he landed some really hard body shots and did a good job of hitting Sigmon with short clubbing shots.

Although Pavlik got the win, he still looked very slow and hittable throughout the fight. His offense was predictable, but Sigmon was too awful do anything other than just take shots.

Pavlik needs to start facing better opposition soon, because he’s now had two easy tune-up bouts and he can’t afford to devote an entire year of his career facing C level opposition.

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In other action on the card:

Jesse Magdaleno TKO 1 Carlos Valcarcel
Mike Lee UD 6 Eliseo Durazo