Arum: PPV prompted decision on Pavlik bout

He said Top Rank did not get the medical info on Pavlik’s hand in time to finalize the June card.

By JOE SCALZO

Vindicator sports staff

Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said the company postponed Kelly Pavlik’s upcoming fight with Sergio Mora because they did not get Pavlik’s medical clearance in time to finalize the pay-per-view portion of the show.

“There are millions of dollars involved and other fighters and we didn’t want to jerk anyone around,” said Arum, whose company was going to air the event independently on June 27. “We didn’t want to go through with it without having a clear report on the status of his hand.”

Pavlik admitted Thursday he suffered a minor staph infection in his hand, which developed from a cut suffered during training for February’s bout with Marco Antonio Rubio. But he said the cut healed weeks ago and he already received clearance from a doctor.

“I’m healthy enough to fight,” said Pavlik, who is signed with Top Rank through 2010.

Arum said he didn’t get that information in time.

“We didn’t want to do everything at the last minute,” said Arum. “We ran out of time to get the commercials and the other materials to the cable systems.”

Arum said he still expects the fight to happen, most likely in September.

“We’re just postponing the event six weeks,” he said. “Hopefully we can get a medical report saying he’s good enough to fight and that he’s 100 percent OK.

“Once we get that, we’ll reschedule the event. It’s no big deal.”

Pavlik’s father and co-manager, Mike Sr., said Wednesday he was surprised by last week’s postponement and said they’d already signed and returned the contracts for the fight.

The Mora fight was expected to be a precursor to a November showdown with IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham.

Pavlik (35-1, 31 KOs), who holds the WBC and WBO titles, and Abraham (29-0, 23 KOs) are generally regarded as the top two middleweights in boxing.

When asked how the postponement affects those plans, Arum said, “I don’t think it affects it at all. We can still put that fight on in December or January.”

Mora (21-1, 5 KOs), the former WBC light middleweight champion, is best known for winning the first season of the boxing reality show “The Contender.”

He is coming off a 12-round unanimous decision loss to Vernon Forrest last September.

Mora’s camp is still interested in the fight, Arum said.

scalzo@vindy.com