14 years ago today: Kelly Robert "The Ghost" Pavlik vs. José Luis "Corncob Vendor" Zertuche Chávez

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IIRC, this was the moment that Youngstown's favorite son (and the platinum goose that provincial coach Jack Loew never deserved) broke from prospect to Name™ in the sport. Heading into the "Pantera" Miranda fight, there was a thrum around the Ghost's name, that had previously only been a low but steadily increasing whir. To be fair, McKart and Zuñiga had both counted as steps up in class and respectable hurdles toward contention (indeed, Zuñiga had gotten off the canvas to scrape a SD over Zertuche himself only a few months earlier) - but something about fighting hammer and tong with a durable banger (durable being the keyword here, something prime "Elotero" Zertuche was, far more so than Zuñiga, even if their power was a wash) and not only coming out ahead but domineering the other man, forcing your will on him, breaking his spirit and stopping him - nothing endears fans to an unbeaten KO artist on the rise quite like that. It helps when you're making your HBO debut and therefore shining on boxing's grandest stage, too.

The cavalier disregard for defense that Kelly (especially when he started working up a lather of connected punches) at times showed here, still, with seven years pro and nearly a hundred amateur bouts under his belt (again, Jack sucked at his job), portended trouble down the road; but considering that he only lost to a pair of legends who might be the greatest middleweight champions of the last half-century not to be named Hagler, Monzón or Golovkin - and that he twice over avenged his amateur defeat to Jermain Taylor with highlight reel violence, I'd say the working class Ohio kid did alright for himself before ultimately getting KTFO by Johnny Barleycorn.

 

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Wash your mouth out with lye, young man!

Do you mean h2h, resume, or...the whole kit 'n' kaboodle? You just don't think much of Maravilla period?

 

That's fair enough. You were quite young during his pomp - I'd wager more concerned with Dora The Explorer than the Sweet Science at that stage - so you may well be less nostalgia-goggled than some of us. You missed a wild ride, though.

I'd caution, however, that dim views of Sergio's legacy may be in error of drastically underrating the PTP II victory, which IMO rates among both the most telegenic kayos and meaningful (especially leveraged against the fact that a catch-weight had been forced on Martínez to strategically weaken him, and he responded with THAT) wins of the last ...er, I was gonna say decade but we're two months past being able to. Of the last good long while, then. Williams is a sorely underrated fighter to whom history seems to not be unkind, relegating him to a footnote; if anything positive is to be found said about him it's that Mayweather ducked him (which is a tenuous assertion). He was for a time a hell of a threat from 147 to 160, and his legacy (not to mention livelihood and quality of living) suffered unduly from the injury, as he stood a very plausible chance of beating a greenish Canelo has they fought as planned.

 

Awks..

 

Incidentally, if there (throwing our dear elote slinger a bone, but also as it happens a sentiment spoken from the true heart ) really is no extant surviving footage online of Zuñiga vs. Zertuche II, the world- or at least the boxing community - is the poorer for it. If anyone's sitting on even a grainy VHS taping of it, please earn yourself some good karma and upload that ish!

(It was the co-main event of a Top Rank in-house PPV, headlined by Kid Diamond vs. Jairo Ramírez - which would also be lost to time if not for frequent lifesaver AsianBoxing.info, the damn St. Bernard dog of the unforgiving snowy peaks of this sport's archival posterity - so never say never)

 

^ btw, somebody needs to get in Bob's ear (or subject him to subliminal messaging, or Inception him in his sleep) about getting the back catalogue of filmed TR fights up in some kind of accessible vault - even if behind a reasonable paywall to cover the cost of hosting it. Lots of good dust-ups that can't readily be found, unnecessarily so.


Also, funfaft, Pavlik is Arum's second favorite fighter after Ali (or was until Lomachenko, whom he now calls the best technical fighter he's ever seen, while I think Pacquiao remains the best overall fighter...Bob is given to hyperbole regarding whoever the man of the hour is, so best to stick with his utterances on more reliable, subjective matters like 'fave'. )

 

...anybody else seriously craving Mexican street corn for some reason?

 

I felt bad for Zertuche, so added him on Facebook.

It turns out he's doing nicely for himself, running his own boxing gym and some local anti-bullying campaign. No more snack cart for Chepito.