Not the same Kelly
Kelly Pavlik Fight Night
Pavlik vs Hopkins
Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik lost to Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins by unanimous decision in a 12-round bout Saturday October 18, 2008 in Atlantic City. Photos by William D. Lewis.
By Joe Scalzo
After first round, champ knew it wasn’t his night
Pavlik didn’t have his usual energy in Saturday’s loss to Bernard Hopkins.
YOUNGSTOWN — The first bad omen Saturday night came when Kelly Pavlik was warming up in his dressing room before his bout with Bernard Hopkins.
Pavlik, whose training had been limited a bit over the past weeks due to an elbow injury, didn’t seem to have the same speed or snap on his punches.
“We had been trying to watch the elbow and we didn’t do much [training-wise] all week long, so I figured that was the reason why,” said Pavlik, when reached by phone during his ride home Sunday.
He was hoping once his blood and adrenaline started flowing, things would get back to normal. But after a tentative first round in which neither fighter established himself, Pavlik knew something was wrong.
“I was just hoping I’d be able to shake it off,” he said.
He couldn’t. Pavlik lost nearly every round en route to a unanimous decision loss, the first of his pro career. He threw fewer punches than Hopkins — a huge upset in itself — and afterward, everyone in his camp agreed he wasn’t the same fighter they’re used to seeing.
“I can’t understand it,” his promoter, Top Rank’s Bob Arum, said afterward. “His performance was so un-Kelly-like. I mean, he just couldn’t get off.
“You can’t take anything away from Bernard, but that wasn’t Kelly Pavlik in there tonight.”
Pavlik was taken to the hospital afterward and received five stitches for a small cut. He was there for about an hour and is physically fine.
“His pride’s hurt,” said his father, Mike Pavlik. “It was just a night when nothing worked for him. He didn’t have anything and unfortunately, it was a bad night for his body to do that to him.
“You could see by the second round nothing was there.”
The consensus afterward was Pavlik will stay at middleweight for the near future. After weighing in at 170 on Friday, Hopkins tipped the scales at 185 before Saturday’s fight. Pavlik, meanwhile, gained just three pounds — to 172 — from Friday to Saturday. One of his biggest advantages at middleweight is the size difference. On Saturday, that advantage went to Hopkins.
“The difference was, Hopkins was trying to get down to 170 and with Kelly, he’s 160 and he’s trying to put on weight,” said Arum. “He’s fighting a bigger, stronger guy in a bigger weight category. He was he wasn’t able to throw punches and it may very well be because he was packing too much weight.”
Pavlik and his trainer Jack Loew both credited Hopkins for fighting a terrific bout and made pains to emphasize they weren’t making excuses. But Hopkins was only one part of the problem Saturday.
“I wasn’t so surprised at Bernard’s hand speed, I was surprised at the lack of our hand speed,” said Loew. “We had absolutely nothing on our punches. Wind-wise, stamina-wise, he was in great shape. He wasn’t huffing and puffing. He just wasn’t bending his legs and wasn’t able to get his punches off.”
Even when he did throw a good punch, there wasn’t anything on it.
“In the 12th round, I hit him with a flush right hand and there was nothing on it,” said Pavlik, who also battled a bout of bronchitis during training.
Pavlik (34-1, 30 KOs), whose last loss came as an 18-year-old amateur at the Olympic Trials, said he’ll use the loss to motivate him.
“We’ll be back,” he said. “We’ll come back mean and lean.”
And, as Loew said, he’s still the middleweight champion.
“It’s not the worst thing in the world,” Loew said. “It’s tough to swallow right now but you have to learn from these things and go back to the drawing board.
“We got beat. A lot of great fighters get beat. You have to learn from these things. We’ll be back and he’ll be better.”
scalzo@vindy.com