In 35 fights Pavlik spent one half of one round on the back foot. Even with a 185 pound Hopkins beating the **** out of him, he rarely took a step back. I love what John David Jackson said before the BHop fight; "Kelly is comin'. An ass whoopin' don't mean **** to Kelly Pavlik. He's gonna make ya fight every minute of every round." Arthur ain't backing Kelly up. That's a fantasy. And the "high guard" is part of what will get AA knocked out. He does not have exceptionally long arms. He has rather short arms even for a guy only 5' 10". That means he must choose between protecting his body and protecting his head. Pavlik will make Arthur think twice about that high guard the first time he nails him with a lead right up under the left elbow. (A punch he has ended fights with. The same punch that turned out to be the decisive factor in the 2nd Taylor fight.) When the guard comes down, he gets hit in the head, when it goes up, he gets hammered to the body. And how is Arthur going to "time the 1-2." He can't reach Pavlik with those looping shots. He has to close the gap, and he ain't fast enough.
Exactly, KP doesn't back up and I can't see AA doing it to him. I can't wait for this fight as I think its extremely close. If AA lands one of those rediculous looping punches that Miranda decided to eat for dinner then he has a chance, but KP has a hell of a chin.
The first shot that hurt Miranda was a nice, short, sweet, straight right if I remember correctly. AA went wild after that. So, if that first shot doesn't do Kelly in, we know he can survive a wild swinger until he clears his head. Taylor got a lot more shots in clean and still couldn't finish him once he got up.
That's an excellent point. At fight time I thought; "He can't beat Pavlik that way." Miranda does not know what to do when he's hurt. Kelly does. He's shown that conclusively in two fights.
I'm looking forward to this one. Not ready to pick one of these guys yet but one thing I'm pretty sure of is Pavlik has never faced a guy who punches as hard as AA, and though Pavs. never been stopped, he's been hurt a # of times. If AA connects with one of his ogre power shots, I don't think Pav. will be able to survive. He may get up but it will be as good as over. Similarly, AA has never faced anyone with as much going for him on offense as Pav. and it I'm looking forward to seeing how AA deals with his workrate and length.
How was the second victory against Taylor lucky? Taylor never did anything meaningful. It was all Kelly. Man I hope that's true. If Hopkins trained Pavlik and taught him how to fight more intelligently, and not just come straight at guys, that would be ****ing krieg. I liked Pavlik after beating Taylor twice, but losing to Hopkins made me love the guy. I'll be rooting for him from here on.
