PAVLIK vs TAYLOR
From underdog to middleweight king
ON September 29, 2007, Kelly Pavlik challenged Jermain Taylor at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City for the middleweight championship of the world.
Pavlik was born in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1982. His father, Mike, was a steelworker who left the mills to take a job as an insurance agent. His mother, Debbie, was a cook at Hardee’s, an American fast-food restaurant chain.
Kelly compiled an amateur record of 89 wins against 9 losses. He worked odd jobs to get the money to go to tournaments. More often than he cares to remember, he was removing dirty dishes from tables in a Youngstown restaurant when his high school classmates came in for something to eat after a school dance.
Pavlik turned pro in 2000. He had a thin muscular body and knew one way to fight: a crowd-pleasing style of go forward, punching. But a fighter’s career moves slowly and Kelly was hampered by problems with a tendon in his right hand. To supplement his income, he washed dishes and took other jobs. Until early 2007, he did occasional landscape work for ten dollars an hour to help make ends meet.
On May 19, 2007, Pavlik’s life changed. He knocked out highly-touted Edison Miranda in seven rounds. That performance silenced a lot of doubters. Suddenly, Kelly was no longer a protected white kid. He was a 31-and-0 fighter with 28 knockouts and the mandatory challenger for middleweight champion Jermain Taylor.
Taylor had won a bronze medal at the 2000 Olympics and turned pro under the aegis of promoter Lou Dibella. Pat Burns, a former Miami cop with an extensive amateur coaching background, was brought in to train him. Under Burns’s tutelage, Jermain won his first 23 pro fights. Then, on July 16, 2005, he eked out a narrow split decision over Bernard Hopkins to claim the undisputed middleweight championship of the world.
There was a parade in Taylor’s hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, to celebrate his triumph. Thousands of fans attended a rally at the end of the route. “That was the best feeling I ever had,” Jermain said afterward. “It was amazing that all those people came out just for me.” Then came a trip to New York for a meeting with fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton. “Anywhere I go,” Jermain said, “restaurants, clubs, wherever; they don’t charge me. Of course, when I was broke and needed it, no one gave me anything for free.”
On December 3, 2005, Taylor decisioned Hopkins in a rematch. He seemed poised for superstardom. But a corrosive factor was at work.
Taylor had grown up without a father. And a Little Rock resident named Ozell Nelson had filled the void, playing a pivotal role in Jermain’s early life. He’d even taught him the rudiments of boxing. Now Nelson and Pat Burns weren’t getting along.
After Taylor won his rematch against Hopkins, there was sniping that Burns had a “white slave-master mentality” and wasn’t a top-notch trainer despite his having overseen Jermain’s transformation from a raw amateur to middleweight champion of the world. There was a lot of money to be made off Taylor now that he was a champion, particularly if Burns’ salary were to become available for redistribution. Taylor owed much of his success as a fighter to Burns. But in his mind, Nelson had saved his life. After the second Taylor-hopkins fight, Burns was replaced by Emanuel Steward.
Steward was a legendary trainer and deservedly so. One doesn’t have to debate the issue of whether he was a better trainer than Burns. It’s enough to say that
Burns was a better trainer for Taylor.
Steward brought Taylor to the Kronk Gym in Detroit to train and introduced him to a lifestyle that wasn’t a good fit. Nelson was given an expanded role in training camp. Jermain’s next three performances reflected Burns’ absence. He fought without his usual fire against Winky Wright and salvaged a draw. Lackluster victories over Kassim Ouma and Cory Spinks followed. As he readied to face Pavlik, his record stood at 27-0-1 with 17 knockouts. But he was a vulnerable champion.
A logical case could be made for victory by either fighter. Taylor was undefeated in seven fights against present or former world champions. He would have an edge in hand-speed over Pavlik. Also, Kelly didn’t move his head enough and had a tendency to bring his left hand back low after throwing his jab. Against Miranda, Kelly had showed he could take a punch. But could he take jab after jab and combinations?
Moreover, Jermain had fought through adversity. He’d suffered a bad scalp wound in his first fight against Hopkins. His left eye had been shut by Winky Wright. Each time, he’d emerged with the crown. His will was strong. He’d gone twelve rounds seven times. By contrast, Pavlik had gone nine rounds once. Kelly had never heard the ring announcer say “round ten . . . round eleven . . . round twelve.”
But the case for a Pavlik victory was equally strong. Kelly had a solid chin and power in both hands. He was expected to hit Taylor harder than Jermain had ever been hit.
Meanwhile, Pavlik’s hometown of Youngstown was squarely behind him. Once, Youngstown had been at the center of steel production in the United States. But the local economy had soured in the 1970s. Steel mills closed; factories shut down. The city had never recovered.
Now Youngstown had a hero to root for, a reason to feel good about itself. And the entire state of Ohio embraced Kelly. One day before Taylor-pavlik, the boardwalk in Atlantic City was a sea of scarlet, grey, and white (the uniform colors for Ohio State, one of the nation’s top college football teams). Interest in the fight was so intense that General Motors planned to shut down the late shift at its plant in Lordstown (near Youngstown) on Saturday night because so many of its workers planned to stay home and watch the fight.
Pavlik entered his dressing room in Boardwalk Hall on fight night at 8:34 PM. He was wearing a gray warm-up suit with a scarlet stripe down each leg and white piping. Mike Pavlik, trainer Jack Loew, manager Cameron Duncan, Michael Cox (a Youngstown policeman), Jack’s son (John), and Kelly’s oldest brother (Mike Jnr) were with him. Cutman Miguel Diaz, who had worked Kelly’s corner since his first pro fight, was already there.
Loew was the only trainer that Pavlik had ever had. When Kelly was nine, he began learning the rudiments of boxing under Jack’s tutelage at the Southside Boxing Club - a converted pizza joint in Youngstown. Loew was also the owner and sole employee of a company called The Driveway Kings. He sealed asphalt driveways for a living. One week before Taylor-pavlik, he was sealing driveways in the morning before going to the gym.
As Pavlik settled in the dressing room, the preliminary fights were underway. In the first bout of the evening, Ray Smith (one of Taylor’s sparring partners from Little Rock) had been knocked out by Richard Pierson (a Pavlik sparring partner). Then heavyweight Terry Smith (also from Little Rock) lost a six-round decision to Robert Hawkins.
“I got good news for you,” Diaz told Kelly. “Both of Jermain’s Taylor’s guys lost.”
The dressing room had seen better days. The industrial carpet was worn and the vinyl-topped
ANYWHERE I GO NOW THEY DON’T CHARGE ME. OF COURSE, WHEN I WAS BROKE AND NEEDED IT, NO ONE GAVE ME ANYTHING FOR FREE”