Team Pavlik ready for ‘bounce back’ fight

By Joe Scalzo

YOUNGSTOWN — On No. 2, 2006, a 24-year-old named Kelly Pavlik stepped into the ring to fight an overmatched 27-year-old Haitian boxer named Lenord Pierre in a super middleweight bout at the Chevrolet Centre.

Pavlik dominated the bout, eventually winning by fourth round TKO in front of an announced crowd of 4,416 on the Versus Network. He was 29-0 with 26 KOs at the time and held the NABF middleweight title, but he was growing increasingly frustrated with his boxing career, wondering whether he would ever get his shot at the big time.

Over the next year, his life would change completely. Starting with a fierce knockout of Jose Luis Zertuche in January on HBO, he rose through the boxing ranks with knockout wins over Edison Miranda and Jermain Taylor, winning the WBC and WBO middleweight titles while emerging as a boxing phenomenon.

Over the past two years, thousands of fans have followed him to Memphis, Tenn., Atlantic City, N.J., and Las Vegas, celebrating his wins and mourning his first loss, a 12-round decision to Bernard Hopkins in October.

Through it all, Pavlik kept asking for a hometown fight while also wondering how his fans would react if he lost.

He got his answer on a bitterly cold Saturday last month, when hundreds of fans braved the snow to wait in line for tickets while thousands more jammed Tickemaster’s online site. More than 5,000 tickets were sold in a 12-minute span — more than attended the Pierre fight.

“That right there showed the support,” said Pavlik. “It was crazy.”

Read the story in Sunday’s Vindicator and on Vindy.com.