The middleweight fight hardcore fans have been craving could happen in October or November.

Bob Arum, Kelly Pavlik’s promoter, said THE RING 160-pound champion and No. 1 Arthur Abraham have agreed in principal to fight – probably in New York – if they win interim fights this summer. Pavlik faces Sergio Mora in June; Abraham is expected to fight sometime after that.

The Pavlik-Abraham fight would not be televised on pay per view because of Abraham’s limited following in the United States.

“I wouldn’t do it on pay per view,” Arum said. “But both networks, HBO and Showtime, have shown enormous interest in that fight. So we believe there’ll be enough money to make it worthwhile.

“Talks are going on right now. It’s going to happen. Kelly has definitely signed off on it, and Abraham wants it too.”

Pavlik (35-1, 31 knockouts) is only one fight removed from his one-sided loss to Bernard Hopkins in October. He subsequently stopped Marco Antonio Rubio in nine rounds last month.

Abraham (29-0, 23 KOs) is a dangerous opponent for Pavlik. The Armenian-born German seems to be a complete fighter but would be fighting in the U.S. for only the second and outside Germany for only the third time.

“He’s ready,” Arum said of Pavlik. “We make fights when they’re ready; we make fights when they’re competitive. He lost to Hopkins so we got him a confidence builder (in Rubio). Now, there’s no one other than Mora with a name, an accomplished fighter. So he’ll fight Abraham if he’s successful (in June). ÔǪ
“It’s a good fight, a competitive fight . It doesn’t scare me. It’s a fight we want to win, we hope to win. If we lose, we lose. There’s not a ÔǪ death sentence in losing. Only in the stupid evolution in this sport did it become a crisis if a guy loses.”

Abraham is coming off a one-sided decision over Lujuan Simon on March 14 in Germany, his ninth successful defense of his IBF belt. He said he would move up to super middleweight after the Pavlik fight.

Michael Rosenthal can be reached at [email protected]