Just as I expected, Sergio Martinez (45-2-2, 24 KO’s) was far too talented for the slow moving, slow punching, slow reacting WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (36-2, 32 KO’s) last night in beating Pavlik by a 12 round unanimous decision at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I knew Pavlik was going to have problems with the quick and elusive Martinez, because the Argentinean fighter moves a lot, attacks in brief spurts and gets out of the way of harm by moving to the outside and using constant lateral movement.
Bernard Hopkins had already made the blue print in how to beat Pavlik by using movement and short attacks in easily beating him by a 12 round unanimous decision in October 2008. All Martinez had to do is take one look at that to see all he had to do to replicate Hopkins’ success. There really wasn’t much that Martinez needed to change with his fighting style for the Pavlik fight, because he always moves a lot and attacks with fast shots and escapes without getting hit. Martinez ended up winning last night’s fight against Pavlik by the judges’ scores of 115-111, 115-111 and 116-111.
Martinez looked simply awesome in the 1st round of the fight, hitting Pavlik over and over again with straight left hands to the head and not getting get hit back. It was like target practice for Martinez. Pavlik looked confused and unable to pull the trigger. One thing I noticed about Pavlik was how big he was for the fight. He weighed in at 178 the night of the fight and looked much bigger than he had ever been before.
That size didn’t serve well at all, because it made him even slower than he usually is. I have no idea why Pavlik chose to come in even bigger for a fight against a small quicker fighter like Martinez, because if anything he needed to be lighter to deal with the speed from Martinez. It could be that Pavlik thought he would be able to overwhelm Martinez with his bigger size. It didn’t turn out to be that way, though. The extra size only made Pavlik even more of a plodder than he usually is. Early in the 1st round, Martinez cut Pavlik above the left eye with a hard left to the head. This was the first of two cuts that Pavlik would sustain in the fight, and he didn’t seem to react well to getting cut.
Martinez continued his mastery of Pavlik in rounds two through four, hammering the slower Pavlik straight right-left combinations and probing jabs to Pavlik’s midsection. Martinez was able to catch Pavlik a lot of times with straight lefts or fight hands as Pavlik would plod in trying to land his painfully slow punches. It didn’t seem fair times because Pavlik was just so slow it wasn’t even funny.
In the 3rd round, Martinez caught Pavlik with a number of hard straight lefts to the head that got the crowd really into it. Although most of the crowd was for Pavlik, they quickly started to cheer the action from Martinez, as he was really pounding Pavlik and making him looked severely limited as a fighter. With his hands down by his sides, Martinez looked Ali-like as he toyed with the robotic Pavlik, hitting him at will despite giving up four inches in height.
Pavlik started out well in the 4th round, catching Martinez with big right hands in the first half of the round. However, Pavlik seemed to tire in the second half of the round, which allowed Martinez to come and dominate the action with straight left hands. Repeatedly, Martinez rammed his left hands down the throat of Pavlik, snapping his head back each time the shots landed. I gave the round to Martinez because he dominated the second half much better than Pavlik had in the first part of the round. Pavlik looked defenseless when Martinez turned up the fire on him. The extra weight that Pavlik was carrying around was useless to him, making him slow to react and seeming to tire him as the fight wore on.
Pavlik came on in the 5th round, stalking Martinez around the ring and landing big right hands and left hooks. Martinez was now moving too much and not fighting Pavlik like he had in the first four rounds. This allowed Pavlik to get off with his shots without worrying about return fire. By the end of the round, Martinez was developing swelling underneath his right eye.
In rounds six through eight, Pavlik continued to control the fight with his bigger shots. The 6th was actually a very close round and you could call it basically even, but Martinez didn’t mix it up enough to actually win the round. Pavlik looked strong and confident in these rounds. The crowd was cheering loudly for him during these rounds, and it looked like Pavlik was on his way to winning the fight. In the 7th round, Pavlik dropped Martinez with a short right hand as Martinez was off balance. It was a flash knockdown, but a knockdown none the less. Pavlik continued to punish Martinez with heavy shots for the remainder of the round.
Pavlik began to show signs of tiring in the 8th, as he began to get hit a lot by Martinez. Pavlik still was able to land some big right hands in the round, enough to take the round by a narrow margin. It was close, though.
In the 9th round, Martinez seemed to say to him, ‘forget the running. I’m going to stand and fight him.’ And this is exactly what Martinez did. He stopped moving as much and just stood in front of Pavlik, tagging him over and over again with blistering fast combinations. What Martinez discovered was that Pavlik was no match for his hand speed in a one on one battle and he couldn’t really compete because of his lack of speed and coordination. Martinez really gave Pavlik a tremendous beating in this round, opening up a new cut, this one above Pavlik’s right eye, leaving him a bloody mess by the end of the round. An argument can be made that this should have been a 10-8 round, because it was completely one-sided to the point where it was scary. It was like Martinez was beating an old shoe against a fence and just tearing the wholly heck out of the shoe and the fence. Pavlik just looked like a rank amateur against Martinez.
The beating continued in rounds 10 though 12, as Martinez stood in front of Pavlik and giving him his just medicine in the form of right-left combinations. At times, Martinez was able to hit Pavlik with a prolonged series of combinations without Pavlik being able to respond. He just seemed too painfully slow to react.
None of the last four rounds of the fight were even remotely close. Pavlik didn’t have the hand speed, looked tired, and was like a tall punching bag for Martinez. In the end, Pavlik didn’t have the ability to handle Martinez’s movement and hand speed and ended up losing the fight just as I thought he would. This was an even worse beating than the one Hopkins put on Pavlik. By the end of the 12th, Pavlik was a bloody mess, his face swollen, his nose looking broken and blood everywhere on his face.
The real sad part about this fight is that there’s a rematch clause in the contract, meaning that we probably will have to see Pavlik vs. Martinez II. I don’t really care to see that fight and would much prefer to see a rematch between Martinez and Paul Williams. It won’t even be interesting watching Martinez pummel Pavlik again. They can fight again, but it will probably be an even bigger mismatch the next time out with Martinez beating the stuffing out of Pavlik.
If I was Pavlik, I’d lose some weight and go after IBF middleweight champion Sebastian Sylvester. I think Pavlik could beat that guy fairly easily. If Pavlik fights Martinez again, he’s just going to get beaten and end up screwing up his career by getting beaten twice in a row. He just needs to recognize that Martinez has his number and has the style that he can’t beat.
By Chris Williams
Reply With Quote