Covering Pavlik colorful duty

By Joe Scalzo

A little more than a year ago, as Kelly Pavlik was making the jump from obscurity to stardom, our paper was looking for someone who could cover his upcoming fight with Edison Miranda in Memphis. The editors wanted someone who knew all about boxing’s rich history, who was a fan of the sport and could write about it in an illuminating and interesting way.

We didn’t have anyone like that. What we had was someone who could (and I hope this doesn’t sound like bragging):

-Make fun of peas, cole slaw and Steelers fans in blog form.

-Relate mildly amusing anecdotes involving homeless people.

-Type quickly.

So, I was volunteered. And as soon as I got the job, I knew that not only would Pavlik knock out Miranda (this is a lie), but that he’d go on to beat Jermain Taylor for the middleweight title (another lie) and emerge as one of the best boxers of his generation (we might as well complete the trifecta).

How qualified was I? Well, my boxing experience basically consisted watching a couple Mike Tyson fights on TV and the first four “Rocky” films. I’d never even seen a live fight.

But whenever I have to write about an unfamiliar subject in this job, I rely on a foolproof formula.

-Find smart people.

-Interview them.

My first interview was with Pavlik’s trainer, Jack Loew, so I immediately hit a snag with the first step. So I changed it to “Find colorful people” and, well, they’re not hard to find in this sport. Boxing is full of characters, misfits, pranksters, jokesters and, best of all, some really nice people.

Pavlik is one of the latter (and a few of the former). I always tell people that if you’ve met Pavlik for more than 20 seconds, you’ve probably got a pretty good read on him. He works hard, he handles fame well and, every few months, he returns one of my phone calls. (Loew always returns my phone calls, although that might change once he reads the previous paragraph.)

Still, as I hinted before, I thought this would be a one-fight deal. I thought Pavlik would lose to Miranda (although I’m sure I lied about it at the time).

Instead, I walked out of the arena that night thinking, “If every fight was like this, boxing would be the most popular sport on the planet.” I’m happy to admit I was wrong.

It’s been amazing to watch Pavlik’s rise and it’s been even more amazing to see how well he’s handled it. I think I would have snapped after the 6,314th autograph request, but he’s patient, he gives thoughtful answers to questions and he represents his city well.

I sometimes (OK, often) irk members of Team Pavlik with what I write. (Like when I overhear Mike Pavlik Sr. joke about wetting his pants and decide to use it in the second paragraph of a story, then rehash it in stories like this one.) But they are a forgiving bunch. In honor of that impulse, I give you the 10 quotes I loved the most from my first year on the beat, starting with Mike Sr.’s infamous quote after the weigh-in for the first Taylor fight:

-“It’s a good thing I wore black [shorts] so people can’t tell I wet myself.”

-Miranda said he had to eat roadkill while growing up poor in Colombia. Pavlik’s response? “Yeah, well, I ate SpaghettiOs. ... We’re gonna make him eat roadkill through a straw for the next three weeks.”

-Miranda had all sorts of funny things to say about his fight with Pavlik, but this was the best: “Pavlik is going to be barbecued, just like the ribs are in all of the restaurants in town. Enjoy your barbecue everyone. Edison Miranda is going to enjoy his on Saturday night.”

-Although Loew was confident entering the Miranda fight, he was also anxious: “I had to shave my back hair off because it was standing up.”

-Loew has trained Pavlik since he was a teenager and gets to know his fighters on a pretty personal level. “Guys like Kelly and Billy Lyell, I even know their smell,” Loew said. “There can be a bunch of shirts at the gym, and I can just smell it and I know whose it is.”

-Loew, who seals driveways as a day job, on what he was thinking when Pavlik went down in the second round against Taylor: “All I could see was blacktop driveways.”

-Mike Sr. on his son’s fame spilling over into his own life — particularly when he’s recognized at restaurants: “I’d be thinking, ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ Then I’ll think, ‘Oh [bleep], they probably seen my pretty face in the paper.’ I think I’ll get a fake handlebar mustache and walk around with it.”

-Mike Sr. said he and his wife chose the name Kelly because they thought they were going to have a girl. “He was born and the doctor said, ‘It’s a boy!’ “ he said. “We said, ‘Hell, let’s just keep the name Kelly.”

-Mike Sr., on his sons’ cooking. “They over-season everything. And then I have to tell them how good it is.”

-Pavlik, on whether he’ll eventually fight at heavyweight: “Maybe when I’ve been off for four years and I’m sitting on the couch and I weigh 300 pounds, I’ll say, ‘You know, I’m gonna go back and fight.’ You never know these days.”

X Joe Scalzo is a sports writer for The Vindicator.Write him at scalzo@vindy.com.