by Keith Idec

Will Rosinsky isn’t Andre Ward, Carl Froch, Lucian Bute or any of the other top super middleweights Kelly Pavlik hopes he eventually gets a chance to fight.

Rosinsky isn’t Scott Sigmon, either.

The New York Fire Department EMT is somewhere between the A-level opponents Pavlik seeks and the C-level where the overmatched Sigmon operates. Rosinsky (16-1, 9 KOs) is just the type of foe Pavlik predicted he would fight during a post-fight interview with ESPN2 commentators right after the former middleweight champion dismantled Sigmon (22-4, 12 KOs) en route to a seventh-round technical knockout win June 8 in Las Vegas.

Rosinsky also fit within the budget constraints for the “B” side of an HBO “Boxing After Dark” co-feature (10 p.m. EDT/PDT), but Pavlik (39-2, 34 KOs) expects to encounter a very motivated man in their 10-round, 168-pound fight Saturday night at Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif.

“He’s really tough, man, and he’s tough competition,” said Pavlik, whose fight will immediately precede a 12-round main event between 122-pound champions Nonito Donaire (28-1, 18 KOs) and Jeffrey Mathebula (26-3-2, 14 KOs). “He has a better resume than Sigmon. He’s a strong fighter and he comes to fight.”

Rosinsky’s lone loss amounted to a much closer fight than the scorecards indicated. The 27-year-old Rosinsky, of Queens, N.Y., lost to undefeated contender Edwin Rodriguez (21-0, 14 KOs) by the score of 100-90 on all three scorecards, but their entertaining, 10-round “ShoBox: The New Generation” main event Oct. 21 in Mashantucket, Conn., was widely viewed as being very competitive by most fans and media.

“I’ve been watching a little bit of film on Rosinsky,” Pavlik, 30, said. “Bits and pieces every night I am watching, and he is a game fighter. He’s not overly fast, but he isn’t slow. He’s not overly powerful, but he don’t hit weak. He’s in good shape. He comes to fight and he’ll mix it up. Sometimes he tries to come in on the inside and take his opponent out. There are a lot of things I’m picking up on.”

Pavlik obviously represents a potentially career-changing opponent for Rosinsky, which is one of the reasons the Youngstown, Ohio, native has been careful to focus on the former New York Golden Gloves champion, not the higher-profile fight that’ll await him later this year if he wins.

“On [Saturday night] we have a game kid in front of us, so I can’t even think about that right now,” said Pavlik, who’ll fight for the second time in four weeks. “We’ve got to take care of business [against Rosinsky] or we won’t be worrying about any of that.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com.