Interview & Thoughts from Jack Loew...

Q: I know the title defense against Rubio has been formally announced. Before we can to that, can you give us your thoughts on the Hopkins fight, and tell us what went wrong?

"What went wrong is I went ahead with the fight. If I would have thought about my fighter, and wouldn't have been worried about all the fans from Youngstown that were coming in for the fight, and the promotion of the fight.

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"I'm not going to make any excuses, because we went ahead with the fight.

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It's not an excuse, because I can take defeat, but I just should have stopped the fight before he even went on. I can't even say I learned anything from the fight except that I screwed up. I made a mistake

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Would the outcome have been any different, I don't know. I'm just telling you I shouldn't have let it go on, as far as I'm concerned."

Q: In your opinion, do you think the outcome would have been different?

Jack Loew:

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I don't know. I can't take anything away from Bernard, he fought one of the best fights I've ever seen him fight. I thought he looked great, and his camp came up with a great gameplan. It's just we didn't do anything. It's not that we didn't do anything wrong,

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I can't compare it to anything, I don't know what to say about it. I know that it wasn't my guy in there, and I can't take anything away from Bernard. He's fourty-three years old, and he fought like that.

Q: Now that Kelly's back to where he should be, and he's fighting Rubio. Tell us about that fight, and what we can expect to see from Kelly on the 21st.

JL: You're right, that's where we belong. We weighed in at 169, and 28 hours later, we rehydrate to 171 and 1/2, so 160 pounds is our weight. Bernard came up to Kelly after the fight, and he was extremely polite.

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He was really cool about it after the fight. I think he's where he should be at 160. I saw him standing next to Rubio, who is a good size middleweight himself, and he still made Rubio look small. Kelly's frame as a middleweight, he looks like the dominant middleweight that he should be. We sparred our first day today, and I thought he looked great. I'm excited for the 21st.

Q: In your opinion, is it imperative for Kelly to look impressive in this fight? He's coming off of his first loss to Hopkins, and even thought it wasn't his weight class, it was still a very bad night for Kelly.

JL:

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I'm taking nothing away from Rubio, this might be the only shot he's going to get at a world title, and I know he's going to be prepared. He's not going to change his gameplan, he's not going to turn into a Hopkins that night, he's not going to be Sugar Ray Leonard, moving around the ring, trying to box the hell out of Kelly. He's going to come in and try to take Kelly out, he's not going to change his gameplan. We can't go in there and have a bad fight against Rubio, no.

Q: The fight in Youngstown almost sold out immediately. How do you feel about the reception you've recieved from the hometown fans, and how much do you want future defenses, and potential unification bouts to be held in Youngstown as well?

JL: We'd love to. We were paying them back, 7000 people came to Vegas, 7500 people came to Atlantic City twice, so it's payback for them. I just wish we had a bigger place for them.

Q: Anything else?

JL: I've got some good young kids on the undercard. It's going to be a great show, and we're excited. It's brought a big buzz around here, it's great for the community, and it's going to be great.

Q: Closing thoughts.

JL: I think they're going to see the old Kelly Pavlik back. He's a little bit more of a boxer, but he still has the big pop. I look forward to the 21st, and whoever can't get a ticket to the fight, because there's none left, I hope they watch it on TV.