Press conference confirms: Pavlik’s back

By Joe Scalzo

YOUNGSTOWN — For the last six months, whenever Jack Loew steps into a barber shop, a grocery store, a restaurant or any other public place, he’s heard the same questions.

“How’s Kelly? When’s he fighting? Hasn’t he been off a long time? How’s his hand?” said Loew, Kelly Pavlik’s trainer. “Everywhere I go, I hear it.”

For the first time in months, he finally has some good answers.

Pavlik and Loew will join opponent Paul Williams in New Jersey on Tuesday for a pre-fight press conference at the New York Giants’ practice facility in East Rutherford, N.J.

The session is obviously being held to drum up publicity for their Dec. 5 fight in Atlantic City, but it also serves as confirmation that, after seven months out of the ring, Pavlik is back.

“People talk about the time off, but I don’t care what anyone says,” said Loew. “The last time we took this amount of time off, he came in and fought a left-hander and knocked him out to win the championship.”

That fight, a ninth-round TKO of Bronco McKart for the vacant NABF middleweight title, came after a nearly 10-month layoff. Pavlik’s layoff between February’s TKO of Marco Antonio Rubio and the Williams bout will be just about as long. (And in case you didn’t see the connection, Williams is also a left-hander.)

Pavlik and Williams were originally supposed to fight on Oct. 3 and were just days away from a pre-fight press conference in mid-August when Pavlik pulled out due to lingering problems with a staph infection in his left hand. He’s spent the last few weeks wearing a splint (which is scheduled to be removed Wednesday) while getting antibiotics through an IV drip.

Although Pavlik usually begins camp eight weeks before the fight, he’ll begin running and lifting next week to regain his conditioning and shake off some rust before camp officially begins on Oct. 12. Pavlik took some heat for postponing the original date, but Loew vowed he won’t let his fighter into the ring unless he’s 100 percent.

“I’m not worried about what the fans think,” said Loew, who feels he let Pavlik fight at significantly less than 100 percent for last fall’s loss against Bernard Hopkins. “It’s all about Kelly being healthy. I’ll never again let an unhealthy Kelly Pavlik into the ring.”

Tickets for the bout go on sale Wednesday. The fight will be televised by HBO.

scalzo@vindy.com