By Rick Reeno

In the weeks leading up to the fight, manager Cameron Dunkin had issued several warnings to his fighter, Kelly Pavlik, through trainer Jack Loew, about hiring Sid Brumback to work as the cut man for last Saturday's title defense against Sergio Martinez at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

Martinez won a twelve round unanimous decision to capture Pavlik's WBC/WBO middleweight titles. Pavlik suffered a cut near the left eye in the very first round. But, in the later rounds a Martinez left hand opened up a very serious cut near the right eye, which affected Pavlik's vision for several of the remaining rounds. Pavlik's face was a river of blood in the championship rounds.

Dunkin wanted a more experienced cut man to work the fight, but his decision was overruled by Pavlik, Loew and father/co-manager Mike Pavlik. He believes a more experienced cut man would have prevented the loss.

"I wanted a more experienced guy to work the corner. This was a very important fight and I told them, we are at certain level where we need experienced people in the corner. I told them that an experienced cut man is extremely important in a fight. I wanted someone like Miguel Diaz or Joe Chavez but Jack told me he spoke with Kelly and they believed in Sid and were planning to use him for the fight," Dunkin said to BoxingScene.com. 

"I asked them to please let me go out and hire a more experienced cut man. I even told them 'if you don't want to use my West Coast guys, I'll go out and hire Danny Milano.' This guy [Brumback] cost Kelly the middleweight titles. He had no idea on how to close the cuts. He used the wrong solutions on his face and his skin opened right up. I thought Kelly was ahead after eight rounds. I have no doubt that Kelly would have won the fight if we had a more experienced cut man in the corner."

The manager also blames himself for not pushing hard enough to secure a more experienced cut man in the corner. He tells BoxingScene the "Pavliks and Loew are very nice people who want to help everyone but this is a situation where their kindness turned on them."

Pavlik does have a rematch clause. The cuts on both sides of his face have been stitched up and the healing process, especially with cut around the right eye, will take some time. Pavlik struggled to make the middleweight limit, weighing 159.5 on Friday, but coming in nearly twenty pounds heavier, at 178, by fight time. Although no concrete decision has been made, Pavlik has been vocal about exercising the rematch clause.

"He did struggle a little but Kelly is a big middleweight and [making] weight is always tough. We're going to sit down and talk and figure out what we're going to do next, but he does want to fight Martinez again," Dunkin said.