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Pavlik Nation descends on NJ
By JOE SCALZO
ATLANTIC CITY
At 2:05 p.m. Friday, just outside the Palladium Ballroom inside Caesar’s Atlantic City, a schoolteacher from the Mahoning Valley — whose name will be withheld, for obvious reasons — was joking with her friends about the horrific illness that left her so stricken, she was forced to take a personal day from work.
“I’m off sick,” she said. “Cough, cough.”
Her friend looked at her and said, “You’re definitely feverish. I think you have whooping cough.”
Over the past three years, “Pavlik Nation” has made Kelly Pavlik’s fights into a local holiday, as thousands have poured into Atlantic City to give the middleweight champion a home-field advantage that only light welterweight Manny Pacquiao can match.
Friday was no different. At least 500 fans watched Pavlik tip the scales at 1591‚Ñ2 pounds — a half-pound under the middleweight limit — for tonight’s WBC and WBO title fight against Sergio Martinez.
“Every fight is as exciting as the first one,” said Jackie LaPresta of Warren, who has traveled with her husband Don to most of Pavlik’s pro fights.
“We want the old Kelly back,” added Don. “We want three rounds.”
Really? Don’t you want your money’s worth?
“The [Bernard] Hopkins fight, we got our money’s worth,” he said, referring to Pavlik’s lone loss. “I’d rather see three rounds.”
Friday’s turnout — and Pavlik’s weight, which reached as high as 192 in the weeks leading up to his training camp — were a big relief to Pavlik’s handlers, especially after Pavlik looked rusty in his sparsely-attended win over Miguel Espino in December at Youngstown State. That fight drew just 3,500 people and fewer than 100 attended the weigh-in.
“I think the fans are convinced — and rightly so — that this is a real fight,” said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, Pavlik’s promoter. “[Marco Antonio] Rubio and Espino were not anywhere near up to Kelly’s level but this guy is.
“So, that’s I think why they’re all enthusiastic and that’s why we have the response that we have.”
Top Rank is hoping for 7,000 fans tonight, which is the first fight in historic Boardwalk Hall since the Pavlik-Hopkins bout in October of 2008. That figure can’t match the 10,000-plus that saw Pavlik’s title-winning win over Jermain Taylor in September of 2007, but it would be considered a success considering the economy and Pavlik’s struggles over the past 18 months.
“The people in Youngstown, we’ve given them a lot of credit,” said Pavlik’s trainer, Jack Loew, following the weigh-in. “For the people who did come, we love them.
“And there’s a whole lot more people coming.”
Pavlik seemed feistier than he did at his last few weigh-ins, tapping his right hand and pounding his chest when he stared down Martinez.
Martinez, a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, seemed to enjoy playing the villain role, flexing for the booing crowd and drawing his finger across his throat during the staredown.
“I don’t know what it is, but I love feeling like the visitor in somebody’s hometown,” said Martinez. “When I fought [Richard Williams] in England [in 2004], there probably weren’t five people in England rooting for me.”
Pavlik’s portion of the weigh-in began at 3:05 and ended at 3:09, which gave the Youngstown-area fans plenty of time to, um, enjoy what Atlantic City has to offer.
One West Sider, Aaron Ciapala, took a 4 a.m. bus to make it to the weigh-in and said he came to see Pavlik win, gamble away all the money he brought and “drink all the Heineken in Atlantic City.”
Donna Chaffee of Boardman, who was here with her friend Barb Cummings to celebrate their April birthdays, joked that she’d been in Atlantic City for 90 minutes and “hadn’t put any money in a machine.”
Was she going to rectify that?
“Absolutely,” she said.
Her friend, Boardman’s Jennifer Schiavone Cox, predicted an eighth-round knockout. Chaffee predicted the fifth round.
As for Cummings, she just predicted a win.
“Kelly all the way,” she said. “He’ll be fine.
“He’s got Youngstown in him.”
And with him.