Pavlik future remains bright

In late September, Kelly Pavlik was admitted to the Cleveland Clinic with a 104-degree temperature and later said he may have been a few hours away from dying.

So it’s interesting that, when he was asked on Tuesday if he ever thought his career was over, he said, “No. Never. It was bad, but we had the doctors telling us it [his hand] was fine.”

So, to sum up, he thought he was closer to dying than not boxing again.

(Side note I: Over the last eight months or so, the question I’ve probably gotten more than any other about Pavlik is this, “You think he’ll ever fight again?” We’re talking about a high school graduate who took vocational classes in graphic design. He was set to make $3 million for fighting Paul Williams. My wife has a college degree in graphic design and makes about 1/100th of that per year. So, yes, I thought he would fight again.)

A few years ago, soon after winning the title, Pavlik talked often about possibly retiring after “a couple more fights” but it’s something I haven’t heard him mention since losing to Bernard Hopkins.

I think there was a hope he’d go undefeated, cement his legacy as one of the best middleweights ever and retire on top, a la Rocky Marciano.

But that loss, combined with his recent layoff (which made him realize he missed boxing) and his critics on the Internet (which annoy his camp more than him) have left him with a lot more to prove.

Plus, as I said before, he was set to make $3 million against Williams.

“I have a lot of goals still,” he said. “When you’re coming up, your goal is to win a world title. Once you accomplish that, you want to be the super middleweight champ. You want to go down as one of the best middleweights out there.

“There’s always a new goal you can come up with.”

His immediate goal is to beat Miguel Espino in a lackluster fight to end a lackluster 2009. That isn’t the type of sentence that helps them sell tickets (which are still available, by the way) but Pavlik admitted the only reason he took the fight is because the WBC and the WBO were threatening to strip his titles. He turned down Williams because he needed to be 100 percent to win. He doesn’t need to be 100 percent to beat Espino.

(Side note II: I realize Espino is ranked No. 3 in the world by the WBC and has won 11 straight fights, but let’s be serious. The best thing this guy can say is he holds the WBC Caribbean Boxing Federation middleweight title and that he was on “The Contender.” AND HE LOST IN THE FIRST ROUND.)

This year was supposed to be a big one for Pavlik. After beating Marco Antonio Rubio in a bounceback fight in February, all the talk centered around Pavlik fighting IBF champion Arthur Abraham or WBA champ Felix Sturm.

Then the talk switched to money (as it always does in boxing) and all the (money-related) hurdles to making those fights.

Then it switched to Sergio Mora, then it switched to Pavlik’s hand, then it switched to Williams and Pavlik’s hand. Next thing you know, Pavlik is fighting at Beeghly Center on independent pay-per-view that starts in Mexico less than a week before Christmas.

So, that’s the bad news.

The good news is, 2009 is almost over. If Pavlik knocks out Espino — and there’s little reason to think he won’t, layoff or no layoff — he’s shaken off some rust, gotten back in the ring and will have every reason to believe 2010 will be a good year.

Watching Pavlik spar earlier this week, it was obvious he’s not as sharp as he was 10 months ago. But he looked better than I expected, considering he’s trying to cram eight weeks of training camp into five and wasn’t able to work out during the layoff.

And oh by the way, Pavlik is still 6-foot-3 with huge hands and huge power. If you had seen him spar with Billy Lyell — a top-20 middleweight prospect himself — you’d never guess they were both in the same weight class.

(Side note III: I’m 5-10, 160 pounds and I’m in pretty good shape. I have absolutely no idea how someone as big as Pavlik gets down to that weight without cutting off fingers. Cabbage soup? Prunes? Tapeworms?)

There was a lot of excitement in the city for the February fight. I haven’t seen that so far for this fight, but maybe it’s just below the surface.

Or maybe some of the Pavlik shine has worn off after a year’s worth of stories that had more to do with things outside the ring than inside.

If so, it’s nothing a knockout can’t fix. This isn’t a city that expects its heroes to be perfect and, at age 27, Pavlik still has a lot of time to put 2009 behind him.

Let’s hope he starts 12 days early.

XJoe Scalzo covers sports for The Vindicator. Write to him at scalzo@vindy.com.