Pavlik may fight Sturm

By Joe Scalzo

WBA champion Felix Sturm is one of several possibilities for Pavlik’s next title fight.

YOUNGS-TOWN — Kelly Pavlik may fight a German middleweight champion this fall, but it’s not the one everyone expected.

Pavlik’s handlers are pursuing a possible bout with WBA middleweight champion Felix Sturm in October in what would be Pavlik’s first bout since February’s knockout of Marco Antonio Rubio in Youngstown.

“We’re looking at it,” said Pavlik’s co-manager Cameron Dunkin of the Sturm fight. “It’s always been there [as a possibility].

“It’s just a matter of finding the best deal for Kelly and the best direction for us to go.”

Pavlik and his trainer, Jack Loew, are traveling to New York on Thursday for Miguel Cotto’s WBO welterweight title bout with Joshua Clottey. Once there, Dunkin and Pavlik plan to meet with Top Rank president Todd duBoef to discuss his next bout.

Pavlik had been slated to fight former WBC light middleweight champion Sergio Mora later this month before the fight was postponed due to a staph infection Pavlik suffered in one of his hands in February.

Pavlik insisted the hand had already healed, but Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said he didn’t receive Pavlik’s medical clearance in time to make the June fight. Arum had planned to make the Pavlik-Mora fight in September — a fight that could still happen — but Pavlik’s handlers are now pursuing other opportunities as well.

The Mora fight was supposed to be a precursor to a late fall bout with IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, also of Germany, and Dunkin said that is still an option.

“We’ve got a lot of options,” said Dunkin. “If we can make a fight with Sturm or Abraham, we’ll go with that, of course.

“We’ve got a lot of things to weigh.”

A bout with Sturm or Abraham would certainly create more excitement in the boxing world than a Mora fight, but it would also be more difficult to make. Since both are champions and both hail from Germany, both will expect big paydays before agreeing to fight in the United States.

Whether the fight gets done will likely depend on what HBO or Showtime is willing to pay for the broadcast rights. Sturm and Abraham are well-respected in boxing circles, but they don’t have a large following in the U.S.

Mora, a former winner of the TV boxing series “The Contender,” is fresh off the first defeat of his career, a 12-round decision to Vernon Forrest at 154 pounds.

The Pavlik-Mora pairing has generated a lukewarm response from fans and the national media.

“You can’t please everybody,” Dunkin said. “We just try to please Kelly and do what’s best for him.

“If he beats Abraham or Sturm or both, everybody will jump back on the bandwagon.”

scalzo@vindy.com