Really, Kelly Pavlik? You’re going to do this another time? The trainer of the middleweight champion, Jack Loew, says Pavlik won’t be ready to go by Dec. 5, the date he was scheduled to fight Paul Williams in one of the most anticipated bouts of 2009. This is the second (attempted) postponement of said fight, one that comes because of the same medical issue that postponed the fight the first time around — a staph infection on Pavlik’s hand that became a problem because Pavlik didn’t think going to the doctor for it was really worthwhile. Williams’ team only agreed to reschedule the fight the first time once the Pavlik team presented ample documentation Pavlik would be healthy fast enough; I’d be really surprised if they agreed to another postponement to Dec. 19, the timeframe Pavlik’s team is looking for.
At least this go-round, the Pavlik camp did the professional thing by making sure everyone found out about it as soon as they were aware it was a problem, and… nah, come on, that’s fantasyland stuff. This is the worst-managed fighter in boxing, Pavlik. “I’ve been trying to keep it a secret but it’s not going great and I’m not going to fool anybody any longer,” said Loew.
This time I’m madder ‘cuz it’s personal. I’d requested time off work so I could go to the fight. I only had room in my budget to go to one fight this year, and my back-up plan was the Nov. 7 light heavyweight Chad Dawson-Glen Johnson rematch. Now I can’t go to my back-up plan, and I doubt I could or would want to change that to Dec. 19, since I have my doubts Pavlik would be ready by then, given how many times he and his team have pulled out of fights (don’t forget they did the same thing to Sergio Mora once this year already). Man, does one canceled fight screw up everyone’s schedule. For instance, what happens now to the high quality welterweight undercard bout between Joshua Clottey-Carlos Quintana? And of course, we probably would have gotten Shane Mosley-Clottey on Dec. 5 instead if it weren’t for the original rescheduling, a good fight that we won’t see now.
Pavlik and his team — it’s almost like they just told me the Tooth Fairy didn’t exist, and then spit in my face.
(After I posted this, I just saw on HBO’s Twitter feed that they’re looking for a replacement opponent Dec. 5; Clottey-Quintana would stay on the card. Coming up with somebody good would ease some of the angry stomach pangs I have right now. It said: “Looking for a replacement to fight @PaulThePunisher currently. Clottey vs. Quintana is still on the card – stay tuned.” But they took that down, and now it just says: “We’ll let you know when we have definitive information about Dec. 5th — both the undercard and the main event! How quick things change.”)
