Valley boxing fans have shown with dollars that they are clearly in Kelly Pavlik’s corner

By Joe Scalzo

Valley boxing fans have shown with dollars

that they are clearly in Kelly Pavlik’s corner

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 in Youngstown.

Pavlik dominated the Versus Network-televised bout, eventually winning by fourth-round TKO in front of an announced crowd of 4,416. 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 2007 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,” Pavlik said. “It was crazy.”

Saturday’s bout against Marco Antonio Rubio, believed to be the first title fight in the city’s history, is the first championship bout in the Mahoning Valley since Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini successfully defended his WBA lightweight belt on July 24, 1982. Mancini won by TKO in the sixth round over Ernesto Espana in front of 15,000 fans at Warren Mollenkopf Stadium.

“It’s good for the city of Youngstown,” Pavlik said. “The fans can hang out and eat and enjoy the night in their hometown.

“It’s great, especially with everything going on now. The prices for the tickets are right, they don’t have to travel to Atlantic City. They can sleep in their own bed.”

A few hundred tickets remain, ranging from $150 to $300, and officials are optimistic the fight will sell out. Members of Team Pavlik are even more optimistic that Pavlik will take care of business.

The 28-year-old Rubio is the WBC’s top-ranked contender and he’s in a position similar to Pavlik before his first fight against Taylor. Although Rubio (43-4-1, 37 KOs) has held some lesser belts, particularly at light middleweight, he’s had to work his way up the ranks to earn his elusive shot.

But Rubio doesn’t carry the same buzz Pavlik had after the Miranda bout. He’s considered a less-talented version of Pavlik, a workmanlike fighter with good power and a strong, albeit very hittable, chin.

Pavlik is a heavy favorite and a win over Rubio — preferably by knockout — could help set up a bigger fight against IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham or top contender John Duddy this summer.

It also would help erase the bad taste from the Hopkins defeat. Pavlik has struck a delicate balance since that loss, making sure to praise Hopkins while gently reminding reporters that he was less than 50 percent for that fight, due to an elbow injury during training camp, a bout with bronchitis in the days leading up to the fight and a significant weight difference between the two fighters. (Pavlik weighed about 170 pounds at fight time, while Hopkins was estimated to be around 187.)

Whenever he’s asked about the loss, Pavlik quickly dismisses it as an aberration. It’s not a stretch to say his biggest lesson was to never again enter the ring when he’s less than 100 percent.

“I don’t bring it up too much,” Pavlik said of the Hopkins fight. “There were a lot of things the week of the fight that were going wrong. It was just bad timing. It happens to a lot of fighters and we didn’t react on it.

“I didn’t take anything from it except to learn to put a loss behind you and move on.”

That’s what this week is about. He’s facing an exciting (and hopefully overmatched) opponent at his normal weight in front of an extremely partisan crowd.

It’s a bounce-back bout, plain and simple.

“It’s real exciting to fight here in the hometown,” said Pavlik’s trainer, Jack Loew. “I think people are gonna be surprised this time. I think they’re gonna see the old Kelly Pavlik back, a little more boxing.

“I’m really excited about the night and we’re ready to go.”

scalzo@vindy.com