Kelly Pavlik

By Scott Gilfoid: Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs) exposed previously unbeaten Kelly Pavlik on Saturday night, soundly beating him by a lop-sided 12-round unanimous decision at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Hopkins, 43, fought much better than he’s looked since beating Felix Trinidad years ago, dominated Pavlik throughout the 12-round, and made him look like a rank amateur. I predicted the outcome days earlier after noticing how limited Pavlik looked against Jermain Taylor, Edison Miranda and Jose Luis Zertuche, arguably Pavlik’s best competition up until his fight with Hopkins on Saturday night.

Pavlik, 26, who fights in a traditional straight forward type of style, immediately had huge problems with Hopkins lateral movement. Accustomed to having his opponents stand directly in front of him, where they’re essentially helpless, Pavlik was completely lost with Hopkins’ constant movement and had no plan B to counter this style. Even worse for Pavlik, however, was that Hopkins had the much faster hands.

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By Scott Gilfoid: Not much has been discussed about some of the advantages that the veteran Bernard Hopkins will be bringing into his fight with Kelly Pavlik on Saturday night. While Pavlik certainly has the upper hand in terms of youth, work rate, power and stamina, Hopkins has a number of things going for him that may lead to victory if he can put them all together against Pavlik. To start with, Hopkins is the bigger man, and is used to fighting at 175. Pavlik looked slow and lethargic in his second fight against Jermain Taylor at the 166 pound catch weight. How will Pavlik perform now that he has to come in even heavier at 170?

This is going to be a rare fight where Pavlik isn’t the stronger fighter, and it will be interesting to see how he adjusts to that. Sure, he’s the bigger puncher, but Hopkins punches almost as hard as him, albeit much less often. On the inside, Hopkins may be able to use his extra power to muscle the slender Pavlik around and get in shots that Pavlik, an outside fighter, won’t know how to defend against.

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By Jim Dower: Bernard Hopkins, 43, is probably hoping he can slow the fight down enough against Kelly Pavlik, 26, on Saturday to make the fight close at the end. In doing so, he wins regardless of the outcome. Hopkins would remain a viable opponent for other top fighters to hone their teeth on, and give him additional big money title shots against other champions or top fighters. At his age, Hopkins is in the position of a spoiler, someone who comes out smelling like a rose if he can fight close enough to make the other fighter look bad in winning. After all, if a fighter like Pavlik was really as good as people say he is, he wouldn’t have to struggle to beat a fighter as old as forty-three year old Hopkins.

The problem is, Pavlik has never been a fighter that wins his bouts without getting messy in the process. He always gets hit with big shots by his opponents, and only succeeds due to his nonstop withering fire. Pavlik was previously knocked down in fights with Fulgencio Zuniga and Jermain Taylor, and on each occasion, he got up off the deck to return fire and eventually win the fights.

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By Chris Williams: In three months, Bernard Hopkins will be 44 years-old, making him one of the oldest active fighters in boxing. It’s quite an accomplishment that he’s still fighting at this late age, even though he’s lost most of his last five fights. On Saturday night, Hopkins will be taking arguably his toughest opponent of his career in the way of Kelly Pavlik, the undefeated WBC/WBO middleweight champion. The fight won’t be for the middleweight championship, as it will take place at a 170 pound catch weight. Hopkins has stated that “He’s [Pavlik] got great defense, but eventually … his defense will lapse a couple of times,” indicating that Hopkins may somehow believe that he has a chance of stopping Pavlik.

One would hope that Hopkins isn’t pinning his hopes on that coming about, because if it doesn’t, he may find himself in deep water against the hard-punching Pavlik. It’s been four years since Hopkins scored a knockout, the last occurring on a phantom body shot delivered against Oscar De La Hoya in the 9th round in September 2004.

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By Jason Kim: As much as I’d like to see this Saturday’s fight between undefeated middleweight Kelly Pavlik and veteran Bernard Hopkins as being potentially an interesting bout, my thoughts are that it will be a dull one, a fight filled with cinching, wrestling and a lot of fouls. Contrary to what Pavlik (34-0, 30 KOs) has been saying about him possibly being able to knock the 43 year-old Hopkins out, I just don’t see that scenario happening on Saturday. Hopkins can take a good shot and he won’t give Pavlik much of a chance to get more than one or two shots off at a time before diving in and clinch him.

Hopkins will be looking to survive, and will shut down Pavlik’s high explosive offense with his grabbing and wrestling. This, indeed, is how the fight will be conducted. In other words, on Hopkins’s terms, with him clinching all the way and of course losing by a decision.

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By Paul Willock: This fight is a difficult one to predict, not because I do not know who to pick for the win, but you never know how a fight with Hopkins will end up because he makes most of them look ugly. My long thought out prediction is that Bernard ‘The Executioner’ Hopkins (48-5, 32 KO’s) will be stopped for the first time in his career by a young, prime Kelly ‘The Ghost’ Pavlik (34-0, 30 KO’s).

For the first few rounds, Hopkins will make the fight look ugly, with his superior defensive abilities he will be able to slip away from the constant one twos that Pavlik will be firing at him. He’ll clinch, head butt and possibly milk a few body shots, claiming them to be low blows, which we’ve all seen before in the bout against a light hitter, Joe Calzaghe. But how long can Bernard hold this dirty fighting up? Pavlik is no doubt a heavy hitter, and with constant pressure coming from him too, this will soon break down Hopkins’ defence. Hopkins will begin to look slow, tired and a different fighter altogether. Bernard simply cannot take this kind of pressure at his age.

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By Jim Dower: To listen to some of 43 year-old Bernard Hopkins’ conference call comments today, he sounds more than a little out of touch with reality as he refers to himself in the third person, and says “If Kelly Pavlik thinks he’s going to beat Bernard Hopkins because he has a right hand, he’s a damn fool.” Unfortunately for Hopkins, the 26 year-old undefeated Pavlik (34-0, 30 KOs) has much more than just a big right hand, though that will probably be enough to defeat Hopkins in their October 18th bout at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Hopkins appears to have gone a step too far in the selection of his opponents. He was defeated by a 12-round split decision in his last fight against Joe Calzaghe on April 19th, and might easily have won the fight if he’d have just let his hands go a lot more rather than clinching continuously, wrestling and falling to the canvas when he was hit low. It seemed for the most part that Hopkins didn’t have the energy to fight hard for the full 12-rounds against Calzaghe, and hence Hopkins only has himself to blame for not getting the decision.

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By Andrew Latimore: We have Kelly Pavlik a young, strong, raw champion, up against an old cagey, highly experienced Bernard Hopkins. Kelly Pavlik, a young, primed, heavy-hitting superstar who has legitimately beaten Jermain Taylor, twice, the guy who beat Hopkins twice. Hopkins doesn’t have the hand speed to catch him like Taylor did (he doesn’t have the punching power of Taylor either). If Pavlik is aggressive, Hopkins is just going to be a stationary target – he doesn’t have the energy to go full rounds anymore, and doesn’t have the power to keep Pavlik off him.

Will it end up with Pavlik walking him down from the beginning, missing shots early, but the pressure will eventually wear Hopkins out – by the middle rounds he won’t be punching back, and it will be round after round of Pavlik’s offense just accumulating punishment. He had to ‘take a break’ from Calzaghe’s pitter-pats. Pavlik’s punishing punches will beat him down. Whether we use the term “basic” or “one-dimensional” the point is that Pavlik offers no surprises: he’s conventional and pretty simplistic in his approach. He’ll simply come after Hopkins and try to walk him down and knock him.

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