Pavlik hurt by struggles of Taylor and Miranda

By JOE SCALZO

scalzo@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

When Kelly Pavlik ascended to the top of the middleweight division in 2007, the two fighters that helped his reputation the most were Jermain Taylor and Edison Miranda.

They haven’t done much for him since.

After getting knocked out by Pavlik in May of 2007, Miranda has gone a respectable 5-2. Problem is, those two losses were against the two best fighters he faced: Arthur Abraham and Andre Ward.

Taylor has fared even worse, going 1-2 since his two losses to Pavlik (one by knockout, the other by unanimous decision), as he was KO’d by Carl Froch and Abraham, both times in the 12th round. The second loss prompted him to drop out of Showtime’s Super Six tournament and into semi-retirement.

“A lot of top people say the knockouts changed their careers,” Pavlik said. “I’ve definitely seen a change.”

It’s the same story for Fulgencio Zuniga, Jose Luis Zertuche and Bronco McKart in recent years, Pavlik said.

All five were knocked out for the first time by Pavlik.

“And they haven’t been the same,” Pavlik said.

Most recent complaints about Pavlik center around his middleweight title defenses against lesser-known fighters Gary Lockett, Marco Antonio Rubio and Miguel Espino and his loss to Bernard Hopkins.

But it’s hard not to wonder whether the struggles of Taylor, Miranda and the others have hurt him, too.

“You look at Taylor — the Froch fight, he was winning that fight up until the last round,” said Pavlik. “Even when he got dropped, he could have took another knee and he was up so far on the scorecards, he could have still won the fight.

“And with him and Abraham, past the sixth round, he went into survival mode, like he said ‘I don’t want to get knocked out.’ And I think that’s maybe from when I fought him.”

Pavlik admits his title defenses haven’t been against big-name fighters but feels he doesn’t get enough credit for how he won.

“Most of your top fighters go in there [in their mandatory defenses] and go 12 rounds with them and lose some rounds,” he said. “I went in there and stopped them, like I was supposed to.”

For much of his career, Pavlik feels he was judged with a certain amount of skepticism because he was a white kid from the Midwest.

Those same attributes helped him become a boxing sensation when he won the title, but he has seen the tide turn in recent months. Some on the Internet even wondered whether he was exaggerating the extent of his hand injury, which prompted him to cancel bouts with Sergio Mora and Paul Williams last month.

“If I was from Philadelphia or Las Vegas, if I was Floyd Mayweather or Roy Jones, it wouldn’t be an issue,” he said. “But I wasn’t supposed to be where I’m at now.

“The only thing I can do is go out there and keep fighting, keep making money and hold on to the titles.”