by James Slater – Fight fans the world over are getting excited once again about the hugely intriguing Kelly Pavlik-Paul Williams match-up, re-scheduled as it is for December 5th, at The Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Now that “The Ghost’s” infection-ridden finger has been sorted out and the middleweight king will be ready to recommence training in early October, the fight all of boxing wants to see can now be looked ahead to.
“Sugar” Shane Mosley’s December 26th fight with Joshua Clottey is off now, however, and Clottey will instead feature on the December 5th card, against an as yet unknown opponent.. Mosley will now have to wait until early next year before he fights again, and against who remains to be answered (although Andre Berto looks a good possibility to land the fight.)
It’s great news indeed that the hard-to-pick middleweight title fight is back on though. Fans have missed seeing Pavlik doing his stuff for long enough, and his first fight back in nearly ten months sure promises to be a fine one. Okay, some fans will perhaps choose not to believe the fight will actually take place until both men are in the ring, but surely the fight cannot fall apart for a second time and get delayed again; can it!?!
Clottey, who was very much looking forward to tackling Mosley, will almost certainly be upset, and it is to be hoped he gets a good opponent to fight on the card by way of compensation (he had, after all, already begun making training arrangements for the Mosley fight). Clottey has also had some trouble getting the fights he wants, and in that regard he is not unlike “The Punisher,” Paul Williams. But the lanky southpaw now, at last, has in his sights the fight he’s wanted for some time.
December’s cracking contest really is a must-win fight for both men. For Williams, who has already won titles at welterweight and light-middleweight, a win will make him a genuine star and a highly sought after pay-per-view attraction. For Pavlik, a win will go some way towards making people forget about the middleweight champ’s catch-weight loss to Bernard Hopkins, while it will also put him back in line for further big money fights.
There will be so much on the line for both warriors in the final month of the year that a 100-percent effort will be given by both, and the fans will be the lucky ones as a result. A possible classic in the making, it is, after all, perhaps fitting that Pavlik Vs. Williams took so long to make and that it had to go over a couple of speed bumps along the way.
But all the same, let’s hope there aren’t any more! Williams-Pavlik always was too good a fight to lose.