Kelly Pavlik looks to restore reputation with win over Sergio Martinez

By Brett Okamoto

Saturday, March 13, 2010 | 1:10 p.m.

GRAPEVINE, Texas — Never one to turn down a chance to promote an event, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum organized a press conference Saturday for a middleweight championship fight between Kelly Pavlik and Sergio Martinez in Atlantic City, N.J., on April 17.

The conference took place just hours before media and fans would begin making their way to Dallas Cowboys Stadium for a welterweight championship fight between Manny Pacquiao and Joshua Clottey.

Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO), who missed much of 2009 with a staph infection and was accused of ducking junior middleweight champion Paul Williams, took the opportunity to show he’s willing to fight best out there.

“I had a set back in 2009 and there’s nothing I could possibly do about it,” Pavlik said. “There was definitely criticism that came with that and I think that one way of showing I’m not a fighter who turns down fights is by taking this fight with Martinez.”

Twice last year, Pavlik was scheduled to defend his WBC and WBO middleweight titles against Williams but had to withdraw due to complications from the staph infection in his left hand.

“I’m an active fighter. I like to fight three times a year and unfortunately we couldn’t do that,” Pavlik said. “I definitely wanted to fight Paul Williams. More than anything you could possibly think of, I wanted to fight him. The Williams camp started running their mouths and that frustrated me a lot.”

Ironically, when Pavlik was forced to withdraw from the fight with Williams a second time, it was Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KO) who stepped up to face him in December.

The two fought a fast-paced, evenly matched contest in Atlantic City, with both fighters going down in the first round. Williams ended up taking a controversial majority decision that night, which Martinez and his promoter, Lou DiBella, still disagree with.

“Paul is a terrific fighter and I give him credit, but he looked like he'd been in Vietnam after that fight. Sergio looked like he had been out dancing,” DiBella said. “I know who won that fight.”

Martinez is a title-holder in the 154-pound division, but has been lured up to higher weight classes by the opportunities of fighting Williams, and now Pavlik.

Although Pavlik still wants the Williams fight at some point, he doesn’t see Martinez as a lesser opponent and actually scored the December fight in Martinez’s favor by two rounds.

Pavlik, who is coming off a TKO win over Miguel Espino, also added that Martinez’s style is the more difficult of the two to prepare for.

“Paul Williams is a volume puncher — he throws a lot of punches and hopes he either outlands you or hurts you with one of them,” Pavlik said. “Martinez is a dangerous fighter because he moves and punches from different angles. That presents a more dangerous threat.

“I have to be a little more careful instead of just firing four to five punches at a time. I have to make sure I’m in the right position. I look at it as a more tactical fight on my part than if I were fighting Williams.”

The fight will be broadcast as the headliner of a split-site doubleheader on HBO Live. The first fight of the program will take place in Montreal, Quebec, Canada between super middleweights Lucian Bute and Edison Miranda.

Brett Okamoto can be reached at 948-7817 or brett.okamoto@lasvegassun.com. Also follow him on twitter: LVSunFighting.