Kelly Pavlik vs Mikkel Kessler....Who Wins?

[Stickman]

Watching the Sartison fight was not a particularly good experience for me as a Kesslerfan. Kessler nearly went down i the first. And thats the first time I've seen him hurt by a chin shot. The question here is if that makes he's chin suspect?

By the look of it (a youtube-look I admit) it looked as if Kessler got tagged with a well-timed right counter as he moved forward. So he moved in to the shot and wobbled backwards. The good thing was that he recovered nicely to win the round despite getting rocked.

Kessler fought the fight to win. Not to win impressively but to win. So he's gameplan was to jab and staying clear of damage. A year or so ago he might have gone for the KO as early as the sixth as Sartison from that time was a spent force. But that safety-first style was a result of the Calzaghe defeat and the importance of getting a W.

In the end he got the KO and it was, things considered, an impressive performance with flaws. The impressive part was that he barely lost a round and got the KO in the 12. So one could say that he dominated an inferiour opponent.

The Lockett-win from Pavlik was also as expected. He dominated and got home early.

A match-up between the 2 is hard to predict. I do think that most arrows points toward a Kessler win. Pavlik has a chin thats suspect. Moreso than Kessler's. The fight will be at 168 which also would be in Kessler's favour. I also think that Kessler's footwork and overall technical ability is superiour. As for heart I'll go with Pavlik. He has the heart of a lion and Kessler looked a bit disorientated at times in the Calzaghe-loss.

In earlier polls I've gone for Kessler. That I'll do again, but I'm sure both of them will have 2 or more fights before this encounter becomes real so there'll be plenty of time to change my mind before the real action starts.

Kessler by KO.

The near KD in the first was caused more by him being slightly off-balance when he got caught than anything else. He didn't need to tie up, wasn't stunned, and quickly took over the rounds pretty much from that point on, so I didn't even really consider it later on. Just one of those things.

As for Kessler/Pavlik....still seems too close to call, to me. Wouldn't begin to make a call. I tend to lean towards Kessler by decision or late stoppage, but that's just a wild guess based on Kessler's power and handspeed, and Kelly's tendancy to take alot of punches. Not nearly enough to make a call, just a remote hunch.

[Stickman]

Pavlik has beaten Taylor twice an undefeated champion. Who has Kessler beaten to proven he is good as Pavlik. Mundine?

Dunno if anyone's told you this, but the "A can beat B, and B can beat C, so therefore A can beat C" bull**** almost never works, and when it does it's only luck. I think you're too much of a Pavlik fan to be anything close to objective. Either that or you really don't watch boxing after all.

[BattlingNelson]

Dunno if anyone's told you this, but the "A can beat B, and B can beat C, so therefore A can beat C" bull**** almost never works, and when it does it's only luck. I think you're too much of a Pavlik fan to be anything close to objective. Either that or you really don't watch boxing after all.

You cannot take Flawless seriously. His posts are useless.

Regarding the A can beat B etc. allow me to mention that some great poster here has made the argument along those lines that Sven Ottke would beat Ray Robinson