Pavlik vs Martinez might happen next in 2010.

Martinez makes him look terrible. Just hope for Pavlik's sake he doesn't get embarrassed in Youngstown.

He loses this one very big.

 

as a williams fan wouldnt you ticked off about it?

it just means he wont have a decent dance partner for a while.

 

Martinez has a great chance here. He showed he can handle the extra weight against Williams and maintain his speed, under-rated power and movement. Excellent counter punching at times, the right hook was working brilliantly for him and he got the straight left working well. He just needs to keep moving his head and countering and moving. If he gasses like he did at the end of the Williams fight, Pavlik might take him out.

 

its a tough fight but no one easily beats pav at 160. sergio is slippery and slick but he isnt a 180 + lb atg. he may very well be able to bounce around and land but seeing how he faded down the stretch against williams and was put down himself...nothing will be easy. this is a much tougher fight for pavlik than williams. slippery southpaws are a pain for anyone...but he's also a jmw w/ a 50% ko ratio trying to keep a big mw w/ an over 85% ko ratio away from him all night. not easy.

pavlik is champ is an alt accound for b-slice. i think it may have been banned, thankfully.

 

How impressive! The great blue collar hero wants to beat up on a 154 pound champion.

He might actually show up for this one.

 

I'd like to say that I'm going to enjoy quoting these posts if and when Pavlik wins, but you really need to learn to write first.

 

hopefully, this is a way for arum to negate a bargaining tool for team williams. williams' camp has floated the idea of going back down to 147 and also a sergio rematch. he may be serious about both but they are also bargaining tools w/ top rank by showing arum that they have options and that a pav/williams better be worth their while.

hopefully arum is saying...ok, no one will touch you at 147 and **** it we'll give martinez the fight if we can't come to terms.

i say this b/c i badly want to see the williams fight. maybe a little wishful thinking. i've heard this as well about a martinez fight.

 

On the face of it, Martinez presents quite a tricky stylistic conundrum for KP, who can be a bit of a plodder and isn’t particularly fast (either in terms of handspeed or in terms of movement/reactions). Martinez moves quickly, slips punches fluently, delivers quick pot-shots or combinations and then gets to the inside where his opponents can’t hit him. Pavlik looked very vulnerable to that kind of package against Hopkins.

But one of the most under-rated aspects of Hopkins' game that he employed in Hopkins/Pavlik was his strength. Hopkins is not a particularly big Light Heavyweight, but against a guy who should have been fighting at 160, his size advantage was noteworthy. He was heavier, more comfortable at the weight and much less sluggish that the bloated Pavlik. Crucially, this allowed Hopkins to get Pavlik's respect. There was a reason why, when he dived in with a left hook or straight right, Pavlik didn't just shake it off and throw something back over the top. When Pavlik tried to reply, it was too late; Hopkins had hit him hard, out-muscled him and then tied him up.

This strength is something that Martinez lacks. He's not even that big a puncher at 154; he's not going to hurt one of the biggest Middleweights in the last few decades.

That brings up a problem. If Martinez can’t get Pavlik’s respect, what’s to stop him just catching everything and throwing it back? Without significant physical strength (not to mention lopsided height disadvantages), what’s to stop Pavlik simply shoving Martinez off of him and unloading?

There are other problems, too. Martinez is very slick, and stopped Paul Williams landing for significant parts of the fight. That’s no mean feat: Williams is quick, and throws from all different angles, mixing up his combinations. Admittedly, Pavlik doesn’t do that; nor does he have the fleetness of foot that Williams did to close the distance. But his ability to avoid a beating deteriorates pretty rapidly as fights wear on. Even after just Round 5 against Pdub, he was panting like he’d run the Boston marathon, and then been forced through about 15 assault courses. His legs were pretty much gone, and he had to resort to walking backwards rather than giving varied lateral movement. (It happened even earlier against Margarito, and that was when he was in his athletic prime.) When that happens, your defence goes to rack and ruin. You can’t switch from outside to inside quickly enough, and you end up hanging around in the pocket.

Now, Pavlik is able to apply as much pressure as Williams and Margarito did. He has thrown in excess of 90 punches a round against tougher, stronger guys than Martinez. And when you get tired and stuck against Kelly Pavlik, you’re in deep ****. If you stand in front of him without moving, you’ll catch a jab, and the right hand is inevitably the next present. If you go inside, you’ll take a serious beating to the body. (Most of Pavlik’s opponents don’t get that far, so we don’t see him punching to the body that often; but when clinching does become an issue, such as in KP/JT II, he’ll dig hard.) If you go to the ropes (which Martinez did against Margarito), you’ll get an absolute working over to the body and head.

I don’t think Martinez can just outbox Pavlik for 12 rounds. It’s not impossible: as I mentioned above, Pavlik isn’t as fast as Williams, and might not be able to apply pressure in the same way. But KP’s power and consistent work rate, and Martinez’s lack of sufficient physical strength to slow the pace are the main reasons why I see an eventual stoppage in this one. In the first few rounds, Martinez will probably be beating KP to the punch. Eventually, Pavlik will start to catch him on the inside. Martinez will be feeling both the heat of Pavlik’s fists and the pace of the fight by about half-way, and his ability to avoid confrontation with both his head and his legs will quickly disappear. Pavlik has knocked out much more durable guys than Martinez with one punch, and so I think a stoppage will become inevitable after the early goings.

 

That aside, this is a nasty fight for Pavlik. If he wins, he beat up on a small man and PW's left-overs. If he loses, he's a joke. I think he will win, but he won't look great doing it. And if you're going to take on someone who's recently lost, you need to be certain you're going to be much, much more impressive than the guy who beat them. (Memories of Pavlik/Hopkins are all too familiar here: Pavlik/PW falls apart, and Pavlik has to take on a stylstically tricky replacement.)

A unification fight with Sturm would be the safer option.

 

Heart carried him through, and he was hanging on for long periods. I think Williams was tired to and content to try and get some air himself. If Martinez is like that in the championship rounds against Pavlik, and Kelly still has something in the tank, I think Sergio will get taken out. He just has to be careful to and pace him. If he does, he's got some great advantages.

 

This is a very dangerous fight for Pavlik. I see Martinez outboxing him and winning by UD.