Pacquiao VS Mayweather Next – Watch Boxing Online

GRAPEVINE, TEX.– On the morning of the March 13, unanimous decision victory by WBO welterweight (147 pounds) champion, Manny Pacquaio, over Joshua Clottey (Pacman next!) at The Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium in Arlington, Tex., WBC and WBC middleweight (160 pounds) champion, Kelly Pavlik, and southpaw challenger, Sergio Martinez, held a press conference promoting their April 17 clash to be held at Atlantic City’s 3,000 seat Boardwalk Hall.

A native and resident of Youngstown, Ohio, the 27-year-old Pavlik (36-1, 32 knockouts) was nicknamed “The Ghost” for his pale skin by African American rivals as an amateur. Pavlik will be after his third, straight knockout against the 35-year-old Martinez (44-2-2, 24 KOs), an Argentinian who lives in Spain and who is the WBC’s junior middleweight (154 pounds) champion.

Pavlik spent time with FanHouse for a Q&A during which he discussed Martinez, what he called rumors concerning his out-of-the ring behavior, the staph infection which caused the postponement of a lucrative bout with southpaw Paul Williams (38-1, 27 KOs), his biggest career wins over Jermain Taylorand how much he may have contributed to that fighter’s demise, as well as his lone defeat at the hands of Hall of Famer, Bernard Hopkins, among other things.

FanHouse: Kelly, so what is the truth about the controversial, out-of-the-ring troubles that have been rumored to have affected your life recently?

Kelly Pavlik: There have been health injuries, but the rest is just rumors. People live off of rumors. When I came in here, you can see that I’m in the best shape of my life. The things is, you’ve got a bunch of idiots out there who don’t know the truth and don’t know what’s going on.

They love to grab on to anything. You hear one person talk, and by the time that story gets through six or seven other people…A guy stole a candy bar, but by the time it gets over here, this guy was out on the corner with a crack head to get this and to get that.

Or he broke into a car to steal money to by a 40 ounce. You know, there’s just so much different sh** that goes on, and I sit back and I laugh at it. It got to the point where I was actually laughing and couldn’t wait to answer the phone to hear what rumors somebody had heard.

There are ones out there where I should be in the jail right now hoping that I don’t get the death penalty. There are ones where I was out in the middle of the street and that I had a broken beer bottle to somebody’s neck.

There are rumors that I got pulled over for a DUI, which you guys know, damn well, that the minute I get arrested, it’s going to be over every boxing website. There are so many stories that it became a joke. My wife and my dad get pi**ed off.

But I’m sitting there and I’m laughing. My wife’s like, ‘How do in the hell do you think it’s so funny?’ And I’m like,
‘Because these sons of bitches got no damn life.’ If you listen to this one story, I’m out fighting my buddy in the middle of the street, and supposedly got arrested and hit by a car.

Even she started to lighten up a little bit toward the end. But as fart as getting away from boxing, I was a little ticked, but I didn’t get far away from boxing. I was just trying to heal myself, getting therapy on my hand from a hand specialist. For a while there, I was on a pick line, bedridden.

I had to do three hours in the morning on an IV, and three hours at night of the IV. You’re weak, can hardly pick anything up. After a while, I started to work out again, went to therapy, and pretty much just tried to get my sh** together.

FH: Kelly, it appears that your sixth-round knockout win over Bronco McKart in July of 2006 was the last significant left-hander that you faced, so do you forsee there being any major adjustments to Sergio Martinez’s slick-boxing style?

Pavlik: No, we fought a lot of these guys like that in the amateurs. In the national tournaments, the Olympic trials. I don’t think that it’s so much that he’s overly, that fast. I’ve watched a lot of his films, and, you know, he’s awkward. He comes from a lot of different angles.

And by the time he lets his punches go, the way that his body is moving, there’s only a short distance that that punch has got to travel, which makes it look like it’s fast. Now, he does have good movement, and that awkward style is a benefit because it could help or it could hurt.

By that, I mean, he comes from different angles, and sometimes, you can’t pick up on where he’s coming from. But at the same time, he could also leave himself wide open and he could always run into a straight right hand or a hook by doing that.

FH: What does it say to you that Sergio Martinez knocked Paul Williams down in the first round where they were both on the canvas, and there are some who believe that he beat Williams?

Pavlik: He’s a hungry fighter. He wants that recognition of being a top dog in the sport. That’s what you have to do. So he showed me that he has heart and that he’s got balls, and wants to go out there and mix it up and that he wants a title.

He wouldn’t take this fight right after the Paul Williams fight if he didn’t. So that shows me that this kid’s going to be there for 12 rounds, no matter what, and that he’s not going to back down.

FH: What was your view on the Paul Williams-Sergio Martinez fight, which Williams won by split-decision?

Pavlik: I had Sergio Martinez winning by two rounds. You know, can I say that it was a draw or that they gave the fight to Williams? No I couldn’t. But thought the amount of rounds, the way they gave those to Williams, was totally wrong. My personal opinion was that I thought Martinez won by two rounds.

I saw that Martinez got a little tired at the end, though, and started to fade away, and that that’s what made the fight a little closer than what it was. But, I would say, two rounds, for sure, for Martinez, in my opinion.

FH: How does it feel that you hvae been called, ‘Atlantic City’s boxer?’

Pavlik: It’s a great honor. Because of the exprience there and the recent history. The first Jermain Taylor fight, the way that I won that fight. The type of fighter that Jermain was, being a great, great champion. The type of fight that it was.

It was a historic fight, and it makes it great to hear that. With what Arturo Gatti did for Atlantic City, if my career ended today, then I could sit back and really be proud of it.

FH: Do you believe that your knockout of Jermain Taylor changed his career?

Pavlik: It’s hard to say, because I knocked him out, and he went through a lot in that knock out. But I don’t know about that. When Jermain Taylor fought Carl Froch, he was winning the fight before he got dropped in that last round.

He could have taken another knee and still won the fight. Then when he fought Arthur Abraham and got knocked out in the 12th round, I had him winning the fight until the seventh and went into survival mode and looked like he didn’t want to get knocked out.

I don’t know I would say that I ruined him, neurologically, because he was in all of the fights and doing great. I don’t know if I had anything to do with his mental situation. I think about it though. I hope that it wasn’t me, man, with Jermain’s career.

FH: Will you be training in Las Vegas again as you did for your last fight?

Pavlik: Right now, we’ve been training in Youngstown, where it’s been going great. We’re going to head down to Florida, where the weather’s a little warmer.

It’s been in the mid-60s in Youngstown. But I think we’ll head down to Florida for about three, four weeks, and then get the training in there and then head back to Youngstown before we go to Atlantic City.

FH o you feel that the expectations and criticism of you have been fair, given you’ve won twice by knockout since losing to Bernard Hopkins in October of 2008?

Pavlik: I have no idea, and I could care less. You know what I mean? It is what it is. I don’t get into it too much. I had a bad 2009. A lot of fighters do. Out of everybody, there’s only been three fights that I’ve had, and two of them, I had problems with the hand.

A lot of fighters have a lot of losses, and they come back, and it’s not a big deal. You know, it’s like, I’m not in that situation. You know, I’ve got to fight everybody and anyone, and I can’t lose, or my reputation goes way down.

So my job is to go out there and to beat Sergio Martinez convincingly. And then, I’ve got to keep fighting those type of tough fights that I want in order regain that recognition that I want.

FH: You knocked out Marco Antonio Rubio, and, Miguel Espino, in nine, and, five rounds, respectively, in 2009, but you still consider it a bad 2009?

Pavlik: It was bad for me because I fell short of my personal expectations because of the staph infection. I’m an active fighter, and I like to fight a lot throughout the year. I like to get three fights in a year, but unfortunately we couldn’t do that because of the staph infections.

I definitely wanted to fight Paul Williams. More than anything that you can possibly think of, I wanted to fight him. The Williams camp went off running their mouths, and it just frustrated me a lot. That’s the part that I thought was bad. The fights? I’m not beating myself up about that. I don’t think that was bad.

Rubio was a mandatory. Tough fighter. Dangerous fighter. But, you see, what I did with my mandatory is what a lot of top fighters don’t do. I not only beat him, but I stopped him. I didn’t go to a 12-round, boring decision. I didn’t dance around the ring with him and let him into the fight.

I fought the mandatory that I was supposed to. I was supposed to beat them up or stop them, and I did exactly that. I don’t think that’s the bad part. But as far as the staph infection and the health problems that I had in 2009, that’s what I look as as being part of a bad part of 2009.

FH: Is Sergio Martinez on the same level as a Paul Williams fight or is Martinez a consolation prize?

Pavlik: I not only look at it on the same level, but as more of a dangerous fight than Paul Williams.I’m not just saying that because I’m fighting Sergio Martinez. Paul Williams, he’s a volume puncher who throws hundreds of punches a round, and just hopes that he out-lands or hurts you with a punch.

You know, my style is that I throw a lot of punches, but I’m more of a tactical fighter. I set up for the right hand. I set up for the left hand. I work the body. Martinez is a dangerous fighter because he’s awkward, and he moves and he punches from different angles.

And just like how he dropped Paul Williams, Paul Williams never saw it coming. You know, he moved at a certain angle and he threw a punch from an angle that not too many punches can throw from, and he landed it, and he dropped Williams with it.

So that presents more of a dangerous threat, going in there, where you have to be a little more careful. Instead of just going in and firing 40 or 50 punches at a time, you have to make sure that you’re in the right position, or your feet or in the right position before you fire that punch.

So I look at it as being more of a tactical fight on my part than if I was going to fight Williams. If you’re fighting Williams, you get a southpaw, and you get a guy who throws a lot of punches, and I’d make sure that my ass runs every day, and I spar all of those rounds and that I get in shape. That’s the main thing.

FH: How do you attack a Sergio Martinez?

Pavlik: You’re not going to keep Martinez in front of you. But when he moves, you want him moving into punches — especially a southpaw. A southpaw always has a chance of moving into a punch. He can move into my left hook. He could move into my body punches as we’re going to the left.

If we’re going to the right, he can move into my right hand. So when he’s moving, he could be expending a lot of wasted energy on the legs. A lot of fiights, I’ve noticed with Sergio, that sometimes in the middle rounds and later in the fight, he does get a little winded.

That’s from expending that extra energy that he expends. So that’s these that we’ve focused on. You know, he also likes to duck down really low, so we have to watch how we head hunt. There’s a lot of different things that we’ve been breaking down.

FH: Can you discuss how the knockout and subsequent decision over Jermain Taylor have prepared you for this moment and the present portion of your career?

Pavlik: When I fought Jermain Taylor, I was facing an Olympic bronze medalist with a sh**-load of hand speed. But in the second fight, I out-boxed him and out-pointed him. I was beating him to the jab.

Yet they say that I have no hand speed, that I’m one demensional, and that I can’t deal with anybody who has footwork.

FH: Do you believe that people are basing that on the way Bernard Hopkins was successful against you?

Pavlik: I hope that they go off of the Bernard Hopkins fight. That’s to my benefit. I hope that they study every, exact move that Hopkins did and that’s what I hope for right now.

FH: How much is size a factor, given that he’s coming up from 154 pounds to 160?

Pavlik: Size only depends on a fighter. Can it take a toll throughout the fight on Martinez? I could. But it might not. I’m not going in there necessarily trying to impose my size as the big guy. It’s not going to happen that way. If anything, we’re going to work on our hand speed in training.

We’re going to work on being a light guy. That’s what our game plan is. I’m not worried about size. That’s not making me confident and I’m not planning on it being a factor in the fight. It might be, but that’s not what I’m planning on it. I’ve already been through a lot of fights where people are trying to use mind games, and that sh** don’t fly with me.

FH: How much do you weigh right now?

Pavlik: Right now, about 176, 177, and the weight’s coming down nice right now. We didn’t kill ourselves right now. The weights been dropping down. I don’t go out eating like crazy, and I still maintain my weight. We started training two weeks ago. So in two weeks, to lose the weight that I have is phenomenal to me.

We haven’t even hit a strict diet yet. We’re excited, and everything’s going as planned. We’ll bring in a lot of cardio that we did before, and the strength that we did before. We did away from the chains, some of that, but we’ve added some stuff for training

FH: Can you take us through your anticipated training regimen?

Pavlik: We do a three and a half mile run. We do our running, flat land, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. We take Thursday and Sunday off on the legs. We mix it up. We do hills, flat lands, stadium steps, might take the next day off.

We’ll be doing the sand and the hills in Florida. At the Iron Man wear house that we’ll go to, we’ll do some of the push ups and dips on the gymnastic strings, push ups on the kettle bells. We did away with the flipping the big tires because of the lower back, but we do a lot of the sledge hammer.

I don’t know what they’re called, but you know those fake rocks where you can do the mountain climbing? You got those little, tiny things that you can grip on to? We do the rock-climbing, do pull ups on the rock-climbing hooks. That one sucks. It ticks me off. But we’ve added that to it.

We have a lot of agility and speed drills. It’s six, seven hours a day. That’s why we don’t over do our camp. Six, seven weeks is plenty enough for me because of the way that I train. Any longer than eight weeks, you start to tear the body down.

Our goal is to be fit, ready to do, and we do already have the advantage of natural strength, but now, we want to get everything fine tuned. And then, there are the hours of studying film.

FH: Have you considered a potential fight with IBF super middleweight (168 pounds), Lucian Bute, who is defending his title against Edison Miranda on the same night you’re fighting Martinez?

Pavlik: We definitely have been paying a lot of attention to the super middleweight division. It is what it is. I’m a big middleweight. The weight doesn’t get any easier every month that goes by. I think we’ve got a couple of more fights at middleweight.

I know [WBA middleweight champion] Felix Sturm is over there in Germany, and we still want that fight. We still want Paul Williams. But as far as the future is concerned, the super middleweight division is definitely a weight class that I’d like to explore. There are a lot of great fighters up there.