I’m sitting squinting through mole like slits for eyes this morning after burning the midnight oil watching Pavlik once again triumph over Jermain Taylor. I was spot on with my prediction for the result, I fancied Taylor to make it through 12 but he just didn’t have enough to cope with Kelly’s consistent punching. I like this Pavlik fella, he seems one heck of a decent guy but if he’s gonna stick around as champ for a while longer, he needs to add a few more tricks to his box. His double jab and right hand routine isn’t the hardest in the world to figure out and I’d keep him away from Winky Wright (scouting at ringside) if I were his manager, at least for the time being.
Maybe it’s because I’ve seen so many fights, but I always tend to pick up on obscure aspects of the telecasts. I loved veteran cornerman Miguel Diaz telling him to quit touching gloves at the end of rounds. I won’t repeat on here exactly what he said but he intimated that ‘The Ghost’ hadn’t travelled to Vegas to make friends, he was there to do a job on Taylor. I chuckled when Pavlik touched gloves again at the end of the following stanza as I knew he was in for a rollocking from Diaz!! I still remember Miguel screaming ‘Cheeeekken, why don’t you fight cheeeeeken’, to a backpedalling Naz Hamed as he skirted the ring away from Cesar Soto a few years back (this taunting may have persuaded Naz to bodyslam Soto a few rounds later!!).
I thought Taylor fought well, but pre fight I had read that he was the bigger man and this would be to his advantage (the fight coming at a catch weight). Now as I’ve already said, my sight was slightly impaired due to having to rise at 3.30 am, but Pavlik looked much the bigger fighter and for me, this was key to his win. He was just too powerful, big, strong and incessant for Taylor to overcome. Maybe the ex champ from Little Rock can rebound and jump right back into the post Calzaghe mix at Super Middle with the likes of Kessler, Miranda, Pascal, Froch and Lacy?
I’m just putting the finishing touches to my latest crack at getting into the trade press and I’m pretty confident I’ve taken enough on board from the previous punts which I had rejected and this could be a goer. I’ll be emailing it through to Boxing Monthly and Boxing News in the UK this week and will post it here once I’ve gained a response. I’m off for a bit of shut eye……
