by Rick Reeno
By the end of this month, manager Cameron Dunkin is hoping to get Kelly Pavlik's career back on track. The former middleweight champion, now at 168-pounds, will travel to New York City on October 22nd to meet with Top Rank.
"He's coming to New York on the 22nd, to the Nonito Donaire fight [at Madison Square Garden]. We're going to sit down with him and have a nice meeting and hopefully we're going to put together a game plan for training, promotion, and get him fighting again," Dunkin told BoxingScene.com.
The super middleweight class is arguably one of the most talent-rich divisions in boxing. From top to bottom, there are possible opponents like Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Mikkel Kessler, Lucian Bute, Glen Johnson, Andre Dirrell, Anthony Dirrell, Robert Stieglitz, and several others.
"There are great fights to be made, and believe me he wants to fight them. He knows that he made a mistake and did some stupid sh*t, but now he really wants to commit himself to training and fight those fights," Dunkin said.
Pavlik's career took a turn for the worse a few months ago. He was scheduled to face Daryl Cunningham in a Showtime televised fight on August 6th in Youngstown. The fight was a tune-up for a November showdown with IBF champion Lucian Bute. But a few days before his scheduled date with Cunningham, Pavlik withdrew after being upset with his $50,000 purse. And he refused to move forward with a Bute clash, voicing his displeasure with a proposed purse of $1.35 million.
According to Dunkin, Pavlik has accepted the serious nature of his mistakes and he wants to prove himself, to Top Rank and more importantly his fans, by staying very active and proving himself in the ring. And, Pavlik doesn't care about the money. The hunger has returned, and he's willing to fight for any monetary amount on the table.
"He said - 'let me go out and take a couple of fights, a few warm-up fights. I won't bitch about the money. And when you tell me that I look good and I'm ready - I'll fight anybody.' Which is what he used to say in the old days, and that's the right attitude," Dunkin said.