13 years ago today: Kelly Robert "The Ghost" Pavlik vs. Sergio Gabriel "La Maravilla" Martínez

This content is protected

HBO - then still the undisputed king of televised boxing, several years away from its precipitous decline - lent its usual atmospheric gravitas to proceedings, giving a "big fight feel" to a match that would've felt thus on any network (gosh, do I miss hearing Jim Lampley and the late great Emanuel Steward...not so much that smarmy hack Larry Merchant, though). The partially unified middleweight champ had started righting the ship after his Icarian flight to light heavy and getting schooled by the wizened master B-Hop. The challenger was still regarded by most as the h2h best at light middle, but still a bit of a question mark at 160lbs having just lost to Paul "The Punisher" Williams - and having not yet become the stuff of boxing meme legend with his vicious overhand left kayo in their rematch. PTP as it happens, was in attendance, sitting ringside with a grin on his face that signified "I've got next, and either way I'm getting paid!").

Rounds 1-2 were dominant for Maravilla, movement and accurate lefts proving too troublesome for the American, hands down and relaxed with no concern for the bigger man's fearsome fists. Pavlik quickly got cut and racked up an embarrassing number of misses, consistently out of range.

Pavlik's pressure improves in the third, still a closer-but-clear 10-9 for the Argentinian. Jack Loew in the corner yelling at Kelly to throw "3-2s" - when his fighter is yet to successfully connect on a single 3 as he's rarely in hooking distance long enough to get set and turn one over - is a red flag that suggests his pupil reaching the world class echelon belies his own major shortcomings as a coach. Harold Lederman agrees with Pavlik's positive trending not quite getting him on the scoreboard, still swept so far, 0-3.

In the fourth, The Ghost starts closing the distance more and throwing shorter combos, making at least partial contact now with some of his right crosses, but still hasn't found the magical adjustment to seize momentum away from Maravilla, who starts whacking him upside the head with doubled-up right hooks. Still statistical domination as Martínez threw about the same as Pavlik during the round but landed just a punch shy of twice as many.

This would flip-flop entirely in the 5th, with the Youngstown native throwing less and landing more than his Quilmeño rival. Martínez even began to show his own facial markings, if to a much lesser extent than inflicted by him on the pastier and more defensively open Pavlik in the previous four rounds.

Pavlik would retain his edge in efficiency in the 6th, as the vaunted stamina of the soccer player and bicyclist hit a proverbial "wall". At the halfway mark, it still felt like anybody's game with momentum now on the side of the Ohioan.

His narrowing lead would evaporate altogether in the 7th due to a knockdown, albeit something of a chintzy one. Still counts officially, however, and most observers have it a two-point swing with Pavlik awarded the round 10-8, pulling them level at 66 apiece on any discerning scorecard.

Pavlik's pressure remained stifling as he forced an eighth round bell-to-bell brawl to even things up in rounds and give himself a lead on points for the first time. This would be his last lead, and final round won, however.

The ninth was an unmitigated disaster for KP, as Martínez rediscovered his mojo and began brutally rearranging the flesh on the upper half of his victim's countenance with surgical right jabs and counter lefts thrown off the hip, catching Pavlik coming in. A very large minority of fan scorecards actually have this a 10-8 round in Martínez's favor despite the absence of a knockdown. The butchered Pavlik managed a meager 5 power connects in the round - lapped nearly seven times over by Martínez, who also posted a 54% clip!

This effectively took all the wind out of the defending WBC & WBO titlist's sails heading into the championship rounds. He tried, bless his soul, until the bitter end, but Martínez'a second wind was blowing with the purpose & intractability of a hurricane, and his southpaw combos were piling up with too much lethal zip and accuracy.

Kelly Pavlik did some very nice work in the middle of this bout, but the lasting impression most walked away from it with was of him getting dismantled and wearing a mask of gore. Between this and the Hopkins loss just 1½ years prior, the menacing mystique and aura that he had enjoyed during his rise as an unbeaten prospect was shattered, permanently. Martínez for his part would cement his legacy by making 6 defenses of the Ring Magazine & lineal MW championships he captured here, starting with that epic KO to avenge the Williams defeat.

Final score: 115-112, 8 rounds to 4 minus a point for the knockdown, for Martínez. Really not a whole lot of room for variance there, as the first four are hard to argue as anything other than Martínez's, as are the subsequent four for Pavlik, or the final four for Martínez again.

 

From the Classic's Xerox of the same thread:

I thought so as well. Still feels surreal that he is now in the midst of a comeback (not only that but somehow world ranked!), after seeing him with his knee blown out versus Cotto so long ago.

I often wonder too how different Pavlik's career trajectory might have been if not for that pair of humbling defeats in relatively close succession. Hindsight is 20/20 and of course from today's vantage we can see how the styles of both Hopkins and Martínez were absolutely toxic for Pavlik, but prior to facing either of them his stock was soaring (especially after consecutive victories over fellow unbeaten Jermain Taylor). If his management steers him away from both of these doomed combats, how much higher might Pavlik have climbed with his confidence unshaken?

I think he was always certainly a latent alcoholic, with the nature & nurture cocktail of both genetic markers and his local environment & blue-collar circle meaning he was only ever one big triggering event away from a tailspin. I do think suffering those setbacks as closely together as he did probably precipitated that tailspin, however. Before that he was a high-functioning alcoholic and had managed to balance the partying with the responsibilities of training well enough.

His first brief stint at Betty Ford actually was a few months before he fought Martínez, so he may have already been in a hopeless downward spiral from the Hopkins loss but just able to mask it well during 2009 given the lower quality and somewhat tailor made opposition (with all due respect to Rubio & Espino). By his return thirteen months after Martínez, it was obvious he was nothing like the same fighter that had beaten Taylor. Squeaking by the likes of Alfonso López via MD meant the wheels had come off, axels and all (again, all due respect to El Tigre).

...even Jack Loew basically flat out said that Pavlik had fundamentally changed for the worse and turned from a stud into a wuss between his 2007 prime and late 2010, when he withdrew from a fight against Bryan Vera due to bruised ribs suffered in camp.

 

Active on social media, interacts with fans regularly, seems happy.

 

He also mentioned trouble making weight for Sergio, so it's possible that in an alternate timeline where John Barleycorn doesn't do him in, we might have gotten the dream war that is (healthy) Pavlik vs. Froch at 168...