I’ve stayed out of the Kelly Pavlik fray for more than a year. The dysfunction that is Team Pavlik became too much to watch professionally not long after the Rubio/Covelli Centre fight.

Note that when the rise to greatness all started, there was not enough of Pavlik for me professionally. I liked him for him and I liked him for the Valley. 

I won’t bore you with a list of how The Vindy got behind the Pavlik parade, and lead it in many ways — from the Butler museum to charity softball. It was significant enough that people would occasionally poke that “we never covered Ray Mancini like that” -- which I find amusing as I continue to bump into Mancini front pages and Rotogravures of him from throughout the 1980s.

But I honestly don’t care anymore — even to write this.

But I do want to extend a thank-you to the Vindy staff — namely sports guys Joe Scalzo and Rob Todor, managing editor Mark Sweetwood, and photo guys Bill Lewis and Bob Yosay — who have ridden a bumpy Pavlik roller coaster over the last two years.

It’s included being locked out of workouts, not being invited where other media were invited, being publicly chided for covering Pavlik legal issues as we do his sports issues. It included their work being chastised by Pavlik in national sports publications. It’s included the most important of Pavlik career conversations happening with other national media instead of the one that directly relates to the local audience that carried him to his big paydays.

And it continued to last week, when Pavlik cancelled his bout. As a phalanx of boxing media crushed the story, he claimed — for whatever reason — that The Vindy did not even call him for his opinion. A flat out lie.

Whatever ... It’s over in the eyes of most logical observers. 

I don’t wish ill on Pavlik; not a bad guy, but one caught in a vicious rope-a-dope of life, business and perspective. As I said, I honestly don’t care anymore — even if he manages to surprise us all and come back.

I just want to ensure that the hard work of local journalists should not get relegated to cheap shrapnel amid a Sheen-like demise.