By Edward Chaykovsky
Former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik (40-2, 34KOs) regrets his decision to accept a fight against Sergio Martinez in April of 2010.
Pavlik was a big favorite to win, but behind closed doors he was struggling to make the middleweight limit of 160-pounds.
He was outboxed and took punishment in the later rounds, as Martinez won a unanimous decision and captured the WBC/WBO world titles.
Pavlik returned more than a year later in the super middleweight division. His first two fights were at a catch-weight of 170-pounds.
He picked up four wins following the Martinez defeat. By late 2012, Pavlik lost his taste for boxing and retired.
"I take nothing away from Martinez, he was a great boxer. It was just bad timing, we should have never signed on to that fight. We should have just moved up to 168-pounds, but the problem we fell into with moving up to super middleweight was, all the guys were pretty much tied up in that super six tournament," Pavlik told On The Ropes Boxing Radio .
"There were no big fights at that time either, there were no big openings for fights. I know everybody says about Arthur Abraham but Abraham was locked up, he had fights coming up. There was nothing really out there, but I took the Martinez fight. I was doing good in that fight but that last couple rounds I hit a wall, there was nothing I could do on that."