Anybody Got Any News On Kelly Pavlik?

same here. he became one of my favorites after KO'ing taylor and everything after that.........well, not so good.

 

Sad sad story.

 

i think it's fair to say that pav's management team made some mistakes. injuries, mandatories, etc. aside. he lost ALL momentum from the taylor wins fighting no hopers and a caggy veteran like hopkins. when he was finally 100% healthy he took the best fight out there (yes, better than williams) and lost. the martinez fight was balsy (maybe not the smartest but best) but his fights prior to that can be called into question

 

Holy **** im from akron ohio, thanks for that! Gold right there!

 

It's easy to see a lot of things in retrospect. The first mistake was allowing Calzaghe's mouth to become a distraction. The 2nd was paying him $2.5 million to fight Gary Lockett.

 

agreed on both. calzaghe became the focus and i don't know much about pavlik but the hunger and fury he HAD seemed to have faded post taylor. the humble, quiet, hard working pavlik that forgot his cheque in the hotel room may not have been the one to step into the ring with martinez.

calzaghe became a golden goose but joe had almost nothing to gain from that fight. pavlik fought worthless mandos while going after megafights and seemed to lose focus.

hagler was another hard worker and he should have followed that blueprint (at least in my ignorant opinion): buckle down, fight mandos when you have to to stay active and fight the best when they're available.

to be fair, TONS of people thought the hopkins fight was no win at the time (not me to be honest) and the lockett fight ruined credibilty, fairly or not

 

there's not a whole lot that is "special" in that division, is there? i like dawson and have been a fan of his for a while, but other than him, what?

but to your point, i think you could argue that when kelly was first coming up and when he won the title, you are correct in that his strength, size and power were his best assets. but when he was killing himself to make 160 then about the only thing he would have (and did) was size.

in many ways the current lhw division resembles the mw division when kelly was coming up. some good tough fighters in both with champs who were riding high in the p4p standings but who also caught their fair share of ****. i'm not about to say kelly is going to tear through 175 like he did 160 but its not like he doesnt have a shot to do something special. not a whole lot of people gave him a shot then either and that is not debatable.

 

I think paying KP $2.5 million for the Lockett fight gave him an inflated sense of his own value. When Arum offered $1 million to fight Rubio in the fall of 08 Pav ask for something that would "pay more," and ended up with Hopkins. He got $3 million for BHop, but he also lost his status. In the long run it probably cost him more in lost revenue than he made for the fight. For example, he ended up fighting Rubio for $500K.

 

When you're living on cabbage soup the last week before a fight, working out 3 times a day instead of 2, running up to 10 miles 1 or 2 days before the weigh in or worse yet on the day of the weigh in, and dehydrating to the point where you look like skeletor, you are not gaining anything.

Under those circumstances a fighter loses speed, power, energy, strength, and stamina. He also loses recuperative powers, the skin gets "brittle," and the punch resistance fades. And, perhaps worst of all, the fighter is focused on losing weight rather than winning the fight.

If I was running Team Pavlik, I would take 1 solid tune-up, and then paint a ****ing target on Tavoris Cloud and follow that target to the end of the earth if that's what it took.

Cloud is a dangerous man, and "if" is a huge word in boxing. However, "if" KP was p4p as good as he was in the Miranda and Taylor fights, he'd stop Cloud in a freaking barn burner. Right now that's just what the doctor ordered. Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind after Cloud/Johnson.

 

Last I heard was that he was being recycled into a Campbell's Mid-West Tomato can.

 

In reality, a 3 month bender.

 

I don't like Pavlik's chances against Abraham, Bute, Dawson and Ward, but he will do fine against the rest.

He could even do much better against Martinez if they do a rematch at a higher wheight.

 

I hope the guys using Pavlik's weight struggles as the reason for his demise are correct. I think there's a lot more to it than that though. I did hear him say he wanted to quit in the Martinez fight and that's a bad sign. Combine that with all the rumors and I've got some doubts, I sure have enjoyed him prior to Hopkins and I hope he gets back to that form.

 

Well the weight issues and wanting to quit in that fight are probably just one issue. He grew 'addicted' to his titles. That is probably why he wanted the Calzaghe match so badly. He wanted to move up then and still have titles. Someone mentioned his speed earlier. TFFP had made the same observation some months back. I've advocated same day weigh ins for a long time because I think they just lead to poorer quality fights.

 

You're welcome.