Kessler vs Pavlik

What Pavlik did that was so great? Nothing that would make him a great fighter, but you and I still picked him to beat Hopkins... Based on what? His skillset, style and Hops' age...

I mean, are we allowed to appreciate a fighter skills and style before they get a big victory? I'm not saying he's an all-time great, I just think he's a hell of a fighter. Time may prove me wrong but nothing prevents me from thinking that right now... I just don't understand your rationale. You don't think too highly of him? Fair enough, but your "who has he beaten?" argument is far from convincing, what happens in the ring against lesser opposition can still be indicative of how a fighter will fare against better opposition. That's how we try to guess how a prospect career will go... But until they face a very good fighter, we never know if we'll be wrong, it doesn't mean we can't make some prognostics...

 

Pavlik has been on a tear. He KO's Taylor THE MW Champ at the time and then beat him in the rematch. This is a guy who holds 2 victories over Hopkins. So I'd say Pavlik definitely without question has a better resume than Kessler.

 

As far as high profile wins go, Pavlik's got the edge, but Kessler has beaten a wider variety of styles and did very good against Calzaghe, who'll probably go down as the best 168 pounder ever, or at least in the top 2. Anyway, my point was that, nothing in his resume was indicative of him being able to handle a guy with Hopkins style, Taylor and Hopkins fight nothing alike. Anyway, in the grand scheme of thing, Taylor was a great win, but I've never been very impressed with him, I thought he lost to Wright, I also thought he lost the second fight to Hopkins and a case could be made that he drew with Spinks. I really don't see Taylor as a barometer for greatness.

 

It's not that he wasn't able to adjust, it's more that he just didn't have what it takes to beat Calzaghe. He tried to adjust, and couldn't do it, so just tried to stink the shit out of calzaghe, but it simply didn't work, he just ended up getting outslapped.

Kessler didn't try to adjust at all. He never tried to whack his performance up a couple of gears, he didn't try being more aggressive, he didn't try being very defensive and making calzaghe come to him, he just fought like he always does. Kessler doesn't exactly have many tricks up his sleeve.

He is as basic as Pavlik, a solid 1-2 boxer puncher. He would fare a little better than Pavlik against Nard because he's not as slow, and a natural 168 pounder, but he wouldn't beat Bernard.

 

The bottom line is that Pavlik became a little overrated and Kessler has become underrated...

Kessler beat everyone there was to beat at 168lb before he ran into Calzaghe, and he was clearly up at halfway against the best SMW there has been.

168lb might not be the best division there has ever been (far from it in fact), but Kessler beat Mundine, Andrade and Beyer, dropping about four rounds in the process. All guys people were moaning that Calzaghe was 'avoiding' and other such like. Many people, including about half of the people in these forums, picked Kessler to beat Calzaghe.

Pavlik has THREE stand out wins: so does Kessler. The main differences are that Pavlik's wins over Taylor were more meaningful than Kessler's, and Kessler's single loss came in a far more competitive affair than Pavlik's just did

MTF