I heard Jim Rome interview Kelly Pavlik today. Rome asked him about the recent circumstances leading to him not fighting Williams (fight was to take place just two weeks ago) while still fighting Miguel Espino (who?) this weekend. This will end a 10 month layoff. Pavlik's reasoning for the circumstances....he claims (after explaining about the infection, fever, etc.) that him and his camp asked Williams and his camp to postpone the fight, but they would not budge. Williams fought that same night anyway. So, when asked why he is fighting Espino just two weeks later, Pavlik says that the WBC threatened to strip his title if he didn't fight his manditory challenger. So then, what if Williams' camp agreed to postpone the fight until this weekend? I know, just like you all know, Pavlik would not have agreed. If Pavlik is training to fight another fighter, just TWO weeks after the schedulled bout with Williams was cancelled, he STILL had to train during that time, didn't he? He still had to hit the heavy bag and mitts. He still had to spar. All during this same time, right? If he is not ready to fight, then he's not ready to fight. I'm not buying any of it. If I was Rome, I would have asked why he ducked the whole SMW division. He went up to 175 to fight Hopkins, skipping the SMW division on his way up, and then again on his way down....to fight, and then pull out of a fight with, a welterweight.
He was chasing a fight with Calzaghe and got sent back to middleweight by a huge roadblock called Hopkins.
I'm not thrilled with what Pavlik's done over the last 10 mos. either but time will tell. He took the Espino fight as a calculated risk to prevent his title from being stripped. If Pavlik is not 100% tomorrow, he still thinks he's good enough to beat this guy handily. The reason he fought Hopkins instead of the SMW was simple, much more money against a guy who's trainer, Freddy Roach, told to retire because the Calzaghe fight made him look over the hill.
Sounds like someone's a tad bit skeptical and to be honest I can't blame ya. Kelly's shenanigan's have been quite pathetic over the past year and I'm not fully convinced that Kelly's not a woman (everybody I've ever known named Kelly has been a broad: Kelly Ripa, Kelly Rowland, Kelly Clarkson, Kelly Hu and Kelly Bundy & Kelly Kapowski from MWC and Saved by the Bell, respectively). Lord knows "he's" been actin' like one. The "guy" pulled out more than I did when I took home some slut and was fresh outta rubbers. Credit to Paul Williams for hangin' around as long as he did. Kelly had no intention to step in the ring with him. He'd slice open his finger as many times as it took to weasel out of it so he could make a defense against his mandatory can. Class act that guy is. Hopefully he'll show some sign of balls in 2010.
Pav has pissed me off recently but the TS is making it sound like there is no difference in your preperation for an elite fighter and your preperation for a can. Pav will probably be only like 75% on fight night. He would get pounded by PW if he doesn't come in at or near 100%. Additionally, he fought B-Hop at 170 trying to chase Calz and looked terrible. I would't call that ducking the Super Middleweight division.