By Mark Vester

While Kelly Pavlik (33-0, 29 KOs) is not underestimating his June 7 opponent, Gary Lockett, he feels that a dominating performance is needed to satisify the large majority of the boxing public who list Lockett (30-1, 21 KOs) as the heavy underdog in their Atlantic City showdown.

Pavlik tells The Vindicator that anything short of a dominating performance will cause some critics to question his abilities.

“The public is underrating this kid and saying it shouldn’t be a good fight and I should go in there and blast him out,” Pavlik said. “Well, with everyone saying that and the public saying that, I think we definitely have to go in there with a strong performance and not just beat this kid. I think we have to dominate him from the opening bell.

“If I don’t do that, then the critics are gonna sit there and say, ‘Well, I don’t know if Pavlik is the fighter everybody says he is.’ We have a lot to prove in this fight, not just by winning it but winning it convincingly and going in there and putting on a great show.”

In the last or two, Lockett has come out swinging in the press by predicting a knockout of Pavlik and promising to bring the WBC/WBO middleweight titles back to the UK. Pavlik says the trash talk adds more motivation to shut his mouth.

“At first I didn’t know if it’s Calzaghe’s dad Enzo getting in his head or if he got some kind of confidence off the Calzaghe-Hopkins fight,” Pavlik said. “Whatever it was that instigated him and allowed him to start running his mouth, that works to my benefit. There’s only two ways to stop someone like that who’s running his mouth and that’s with your fists. Both of them. That’s what we’re gonna do June 7.”

Send News Tips and Comments To Mark Vester @ boxingscene@hotmail.com