Pavlik overwhelmed by city’s support

By Joe Scalzo

His opponent, Marco Antonio Rubio, said the crowd made it tough on him.

YOUNGSTOWN — A little more than two years ago, Kelly Pavlik stood at a podium inside the Chevy Centre and talked about one day defending his middleweight title in Youngstown.

That dream became reality on Saturday and Pavlik’s camp seemed overwhelmed by the overflow of support they got from the city this weekend.

“This is going to be a memory that I’m never going to ever, ever, ever, ever forget,” he said.

Pavlik spent the first two minutes of his post-fight press conference thanking members of his camp, the media, the fans and anyone else he could think of.

“When you come back here and fight and defend your title,” Pavlik said, “it’s something that you can’t explain to people.”

Pavlik’s promoter, Bob Arum, said the gate receipts from the Chevy Centre exceeded those from Saturday’s bouts at Madison Square Garden, even though the two biggest names at the latter site — Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto and Irishman John Duddy — both have large followings in New York.

“That’s pretty damn good,” Arum said. “It says something about this town with all the economic woes. You can’t get better support.”

Several other Top Rank employees raved about Pavlik’s support, with one saying “I’ve never seen a city get behind a fighter like this.”

Pavlik’s trainer, Jack Loew, also raved about the support, which started with an escort from the hotel to the arena and continued throughout the night.

“What an event,” he said.

Pavlik’s opponent, Marco Antonio Rubio, has nearly 50 pro bouts under his belt and has fought in hostile environments before, but he admitted the partisan crowd made it tough on him.

“It had a little bit of an effect,” he said. “It was a great crowd.”

Saturday’s bout was Pavlik’s fifth in the Mahoning Valley and his first since beating Lenord Pierre in November of 2006.

That fight drew more than 4,000 people, while Saturday’s fight drew a record crowd of 7,288.

Pavlik said his only regret was the arena wasn’t bigger.

“When you have seven thousand people screaming for you in a loud, tight, packed arena. ...” he said. “It’s awesome.”

scalzo@vindy.com