By: Jim Amato

When Kelly Pavlik of Youngstown, Ohio recently halted rugged Jose Luis Zertuche he sent a clear message to the middleweight division. He’s for real. Don’t doubt it for a minute. The trouble is, where does he go from here ? There was talk of him meeting the brutal punching Edison Miranda. That will have to be put off since Miranda is fighting undefeated Allan Green on March 3rd. Of course Kelly could take on the winner of that bout. Champion Jermain Taylor has not shown a major interest in a match with Kelly. To the best of my knowledge Winky Wright has shown no inclination to meet Pavlik either. Of course there is the remote possibility of a match with the game Arthur Abraham for the IBF title belt.

OBSERVATION ;

I was trying to compare Kelly to another boxer. Then it hit me. With his height, reach and power he has a lot of Bob Foster’s qualities. Granted those are some pretty big shoes to step in to as Foster was one of the greatest light heavyweights of all time and he is one of my personal favorites. Still I do see some of these qualities in Kelly.

First of all Kelly has a great confidence in his talents, much like Foster did. I met Kelly at a banquet a few years back and he had barely a dozen fights at the time.. Already he was talking about meeting guys like William Joppy, Robert Allen and Antwon Echols who were firmly entrenched in the middleweight ratings.

Like Foster, if Kelly can keep you at the end of that long jab of his, the big rights will follow. Zertuche gamely found out just how hard Kelly could clout with that right. Kelly even owns a nifty little uppercut. Kelly’s trainer is Jack Loew. I know quite a few people in the Youngstown area and they all speak very highly of Mr. Loew. Obviously he’s done a great with Pavlik.

There is one thing I see that Kelly hasn’t quite developed. If a boxer was able to get by the Foster jab, Bob had an answer for them. It was that short, devastating left hook. It put Dick Tiger and Mike Quarry to sleep and I’m sure it did not do Vincente Rondon much good. I’d like to see Kelly shorten that left hook on the inside. Kelly is not a bad inside fighter but that is probably where he is the most beatable. A nice little compact left hook in the trenches could really discourage a fighter like Edison Miranda from trying to walk right through Kelly.

Pavlik is not afraid to mix it up and he has shown poise under fire. I think he has the tools to beat Miranda, Green, Abraham and possibly even Jermain Taylor. The one guy I’d avoid is Winky Wright. That guy just has a way of making everybody look bad. Still if it’s Wright he must fight, I feel Kelly can outpoint him from long range.

Is Kelly Pavlik the best middleweight in the world ? Well the jury is still out but he deserves a fight against a top dog. Then and only then will we see if Kelly will join the other Youngstown greats like Harry Arroyo, Ray Mancini, Greg Richardson and Jeff Lampkin as a champion.