To see Sergio Martinez’s exuberance after Saturday’s fight, to hear him call a feeling inspired by the world middleweight championship “a tremendous and incredible pride that is impossible to describe,” was to feel nostalgia for the days Kelly Pavlik inspired the same in fans. So long ago.
Instead, by the time of Martinez’s ecstatic proclamation, the larger part of the smaller Youngstown contingent that made the trip to Atlantic City sadly filed out of Boardwalk Hall, many for the last time. Pavlik protested that he was still a young man, but by then he was protesting too much to an almost empty arena.
So it went Saturday. In an excellent fight broadcast by HBO, Argentine Sergio “Maravilla” Martinez decisioned Ohio’s Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik to become the lineal middleweight champion of the world. And for once the ringside judges had it right and unanimous: 115-112, 115-111, 116-111.
My scorecard concurred. I had it 116-112 for Martinez, to whom I gave rounds 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 and 12. Rounds 5, 6 and 7 went to Pavlik – with the seventh being a 10-8 round because of a missed tripping call by referee David Fields. I had round 8 even, 10-10.
That wasn’t a ring-side scorecard. It wasn’t even a live-TV scorecard. Instead it was a two-hours-later-via-DVR scorecard. I forewent the live action to attend a San Antonio Symphony Orchestra “Fiesta Pops” performance at Majestic Theatre, which featured Los Tres Reyes and Campanas de America. Fiesta is a big deal in my new hometown. I suppose I like orchestral music and mariachis, too.
But had you told me in 2007 I would forego a live Kelly Pavlik broadcast to watch guys in tight pants accompanied by a woodwinds section, I’d have hit you with a right cross – then snapped my wrist back over the ear like “The Ghost” himself.
Thirty-eight months ago, Pavlik blasted Jose Luis Zertuche, and a lot of us got excited. He then knocked out Edison Miranda. After that fight, I wrote that Pavlik’s simple style was perfect for undoing Jermain Taylor. It was indeed. Pavlik flattened the undefeated, undisputed world middleweight champion in seven rounds. Nothing has been the same since.
I have no regrets about attending last night’s concert in lieu of Pavlik’s fight. Sergio Martinez might have deserved better, though.
Martinez, after all, is the closest thing we’ve seen to a prime Roy Jones Jr. in about a decade. Ten years of combing urban American gyms – 100 “RJJ” imitators in each – turned up nothing. We were looking in the wrong country; an Argentine soccer player who tried boxing at age 20 was the professional we sought. Go figure.
Martinez’s secret? His legs. They never stop firing. He has good head movement. He punches well enough to keep much bigger guys like Pavlik and Paul Williams honest, obviously. But his legs are what make him exceptional. He eschews the skittish upper-body flinching of American boxers and all their talk about “angles” and “footwork” for the more reliable force of his quadriceps. He keeps his hands down – never a great idea in prizefighting – but he makes that play the only way you can: with a tucked chin and constant legwork.
That’s what discouraged Pavlik Saturday. And “discouragement” is the perfect word to describe what has plagued Pavlik in his two career losses, and one borrowed from Pavlik’s trainer Jack Loew. So long as he is engaged in a test of courage with an opponent, Pavlik prevails. You hit me, I hit you, and we keep doing this till one of us is unconscious; there’s still not a 160-pounder in the world who’s going to beat Pavlik at that game. But once you disengage from battle with Pavlik, you remove courage from the equation – almost as if Pavlik were raised in Culiacán, Sinaloa instead of Youngstown, Ohio.
Martinez disengaged Pavlik’s bravery early in the fight and left him discouraged throughout. That’s how an inflated super welterweight beat the hell out of a shrunken light heavy.
Pavlik did rally to make the fight interesting. In the fifth round, Martinez stumbled into a straight left – the very way Loew promised he would – and that emboldened the champ. In the sixth, Pavlik tried to follow Loew’s directions by corralling Martinez with left hook/right cross combos, those “three-twos” Loew demanded. But ultimately Martinez was too fast and countered too hard for that gambit. In the seventh, Pavlik combined a right uppercut and a left leg to send Martinez to the mat. Both guys knew it wasn’t a real knockdown, though, and Pavlik didn’t gain any advantage from it but an extra point.
Martinez cut Pavlik three ways in the ninth: long, deep and often. It changed everything about both men. Afterwards, Pavlik pushed off his jab – nervously moving his glove and body in opposite directions. Then Martinez outhit and outclassed him through the championship rounds.
After the 11th, Pavlik, pale face bright with blood, walked with his shoulders slumped to a somber corner that looked discouraged as he did. Martinez, on the other hand, caught a flurry of verbal abuse from his trainer; why hadn’t he pressed the attack and stopped Pavlik? From impossibility to expectation in 33 minutes.
Whither Kelly Pavlik? Promoter Top Rank will stick with him – hell, they’re sticking with Antonio Margarito, aren’t they? – and at some point, as a heavy underdog, Pavlik might just surprise the eventual winner of Showtime’s “Super Six” tournament. For now, though, he’s off the radar. But he’s still a class act, and so he might well prefer it that way.
Sergio Martinez, meanwhile, is boxing’s new thing. He has a rematch clause with Pavlik and an unofficial mandate for one with Paul Williams. But since neither of those guys can now sell tickets in Atlantic City, here’s an idea: Fight both in Buenos Aires. Put the “world” back in world middleweight champion, Sergio, why not?
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter.com/bartbarry
Photo by Claudia Bocanegra
