Ex-champs can’t be wrong: Pavlik will prevail tonight

Tonight’s the night boxing enthusiasts in Youngstown and throughout the Mahoning Valley have awaited for months, even years.

Hometown hero Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik will fight Jermain Taylor in the World Boxing Council’s middleweight championship in Atlantic City, N.J.

We enthusiastically place our good-natured bets squarely on the undefeated Pavlik. And we’re in good company. Those in the know — former Valley boxers who went on to fame and glory in their own right — also are placing their faith in Pavlik to defeat the six-time middleweight champ from Little Rock. Ark.

URay “Boom Boom” Mancini, a former WBA lightweight champion who also grew up on Youngstown’s South Side, believes Pavlik will win but not without a little effort: “Taylor [27-0-1, 17 KOs] is a good athlete, and he is world champion. ... So, [Pavlik] has to be patient and use his left hand. He has to stay patient. If he stays patient, he can win. Pavlik is the hardest puncher in his division.”

UHarry Arroyo, a former Youngstown-based IBF lightweight champion, predicts Pavlik will win by the eighth of the 12-round fight. He said Pavlik “can take a punch, and he can still take out Taylor. And there is nothing like youth to keep you going.”

UJeff Lampkin, a former IBF cruiserweight champion who also hails from Youngstown, agrees that Pavlik has the right stuff. “He should be the aggressor and go on the attack using his left jab right from the opening bell. He has a nice long jab that will confuse [Taylor],” Lampkin said.

Pavlik’s slow, steady rise

With that unanimous decision from the Valley’s finest boxers and with unbridled support from Youngstown-Warren area fans, family and friends, Pavlik has a support system Taylor will find hard to rival.

Pavlik’s fought long and hard to win the biggest fight of his career tonight. But the 25-year-old’s rise to glory has been anything but meteoric. He has taken a slow but steady path of professional growth and improvement. Too often though, his deft talents went severely understated by national boxing officials and publications.

True, he had fought Jermain Taylor in 2000 in an Olympics consolation match — and lost. But Pavlik’s camp questioned the officiating of that match, and believed that he actually won it. The experience soured Pavlik on Olympics boxing, and instead he decided to go pro.

Over the next five years, he fought 26 boxers, and in amazing fashion, knocked out 23 of them. In October 2005, Pavlik met and beat Fulgencio Zuniga in the ninth round for the NABF title in Las Vegas. That fight served as a springboard for bigger and more widely viewed bouts against Bronko McKart, Lenord Pierre, Jose Luis Zertuche and most recently, Edison Miranda, in May.

Today he is universally recognized as the No. 1 contender for the middleweight crown. By early Sunday morning, he may very well be the first of five opponents to strip the pompous Taylor of his middleweight title.

Pavlik is prepared and psyched for tonight’s bout. “I’ll do my talking with my fists,” Pavlik said. “I won’t freeze up on Saturday, because I train too hard. I have to give credit to myself, to my focus.”

We praise Pavlik’s passion for his sport and perseverance in his climb to the top. We join the Valley’s powerhouse boxing legends — Mancini, Arroyo and Lampkin — in looking forward to The Ghost harnessing his energy, talent and tenacity to produce a decisive knockout of Taylor tonight.