by David P. Greisman

Once, they were raw materials, malleable, forged under fire, tempered over time. They became extensions of their personalities, which in turn were extensions of the places where they had been shaped and refined into men. Fighting men.

Kelly Pavlik, child of the steel city of Youngstown, Ohio, is blue-collar, workmanlike, punching in and punching out, a man with sledgehammers in his hands. Sergio Martinez, product of the Latin America country of Argentina, is machismo in motion, fluid on his feet, confident in conquest, a swashbuckling swordsman whose fists become blades.

Power against speed.

Will against skill.

Pavlik was bigger and stronger. Martinez was smaller but sharper. He cut Pavlik, and then he cut him down to size.

Size can be an advantage and a disadvantage. Pavlik could hurt Martinez with a single shot. The problem was catching him with one.

Pavlik, nominally a middleweight, had drained his 6-foot-2 frame within the 160-pound limit but had regained more than 18 pounds between stepping on the scale and stepping in the ring. Martinez, normally a junior middleweight, had weighed the same as Pavlik on Friday afternoon but would be 11 pounds lighter than his opponent on Saturday.

Pavlik seemed sluggish and lumbering. Martinez capitalized on their contrasting conditions.

The Argentine tangoed around the ring, taking quick steps forward and away, stabbing with his jab and thrusting forth with straight southpaw left hands. Less than two minutes into the first round he had sliced open a sliver of skin above Pavlik’s left eye. Perhaps the red flowed because of the point of Martinez’s paintbrush. Or maybe it was because of the canvas. Fighters who cut a lot of weight are more susceptible to cuts.

Pavlik swung his sledgehammers but failed to nail Martinez, who would duck and deke and dance away. Ten seconds into the second round, Martinez, facing a man who could end the night with one punch, had decided that Pavlik wouldn’t be able to do so. Martinez dropped his gloves to his side, bent his head forward, certain of the sword despite his being outgunned.

The key was preventing Pavlik from pulling the trigger and then seeing the shots coming when Pavlik did fire. In the first two rounds, Pavlik threw just 63 punches, landing 17. Martinez was more active and more accurate, throwing 93 and landing 34.

Martinez could land first, or he could make Pavlik miss and then land in response. He had both the point and the counterpoint.

Pavlik, down two rounds, was down on himself. His trainer, Jack Loew, sought to get him back on track. “Don’t get it in your head we can’t get off,” Loew said after the second round. “We’ll get off.”

Just as size isn’t always an advantage, a slower fighter can compensate for his disadvantage in speed. The blue-collar Pavlik clocked back in and went back to work, stepping up his pressure and making subtle adjustments both on offense and on defense.

It would seem counterintuitive that Pavlik winding up with his power punches would increase their chances of landing. It seems logical that Martinez would have even more time to see them coming and get away from them. But Pavlik would shuffle forward and wait for Martinez to move before throwing his right hands in the direction Martinez was heading. And when Martinez threw his straight left hands, Pavlik would block or parry them with his right glove.

Martinez had out-landed Pavlik in three of the first four rounds. Through four, Martinez had landed 61 of 174 punches, or 15 of 43 per round.  Pavlik had landed 38 punches out of 156 thrown, or 9 of 39 per round.

But Pavlik out-landed Martinez in rounds five through eight, landing 75 punches out of 186 thrown, or 19 out of 47, doubling the number of punches he’d landed in the first four rounds of the fight. Many of those were jabs – 36 landed in rounds five through eight, compared to the 11 he’d landed during rounds one through four. Martinez, meanwhile, landed 57 punches of 199 thrown in rounds five through eight, or 14 of 50 per round.

Pavlik sent Martinez to the canvas halfway through the seventh stanza, a right hand catching him off-balance. Though Martinez was not hurt, it cost him an additional point on the scorecards, and Pavlik had seized the momentum.

Yet Pavlik wasn’t the only one for whom one punch could change a fight.

It wasn’t a knockout blow, but a single left hand from Sergio Martinez early in the ninth round brought blood from above Pavlik’s left eye and opened the floodgates – combination after combination from Martinez, torrents of lefts and rights. Martinez threw and landed more punches in that ninth round than he would in any other round, hitting Pavlik with 37 of 90. A majority were power shots, Martinez landing 34 of 63.

Pavlik never went down, but there would’ve been little argument against scoring the round a dominant 10-8 for Martinez.

Martinez had sucked the life from “The Ghost.”

Before that round, Pavlik and Martinez had been close to even with their connects – Pavlik 113 of 342, Martinez 118 of 373 – and close to even on the scorecards.

The final four rounds, starting with the ninth, saw Martinez surge to victory. He landed 112 punches out of 313 thrown in rounds nine through 12, including 98 of 202 power shots. Pavlik was limited to 51 punches landed out of 191, landing less than half what Martinez did in the final four rounds. He only landed 21 of 50 power shots, less than one-fourth what Martinez did.

Those four rounds gave Martinez the unanimous decision: 116-111, 115-112 and 115-111.

Those four rounds also gave Martinez the middleweight championship, what he had referred to before the fight as “the Queen of championships” in Argentina, the same championship another Argentine, Hall of Famer Carlos Monzon, had held and defended 14 times.

It had been an extended ascent for Martinez. He is 35 years old, 49 fights and more than a dozen years into his career. Two years ago he was fighting on a non-televised undercard. In the past 18 months he has been on HBO four times.

He has been impressive, dominating Alex Bunema. He has been robbed in a draw with Kermit Cintron. He has entertained in a Fight of the Year candidate with Paul Williams. And he has arrived with this win over Pavlik.

It has been a rapid descent for Pavlik. Three years ago he went from prospect to contender to champion, scoring three straight highlight-reel knockouts over Jose Luis Zertuche, Edison Miranda and Jermain Taylor. The Taylor win made Pavlik the middleweight champion.

But his reign consisted of three wins against lesser opposition in a shallow division (Gary Lockett, Marco Antonio Rubio and Miguel Espino) and two bouts in other weight classes – a win over Jermain Taylor at super middleweight and a loss to Bernard Hopkins at light heavyweight.

He returns to Youngstown, to his steel city in what is, rather apropos, part of the rust belt. He came to the ring Saturday as a hero to a financially depressed area. Now, like his hometown, he must see if he can rebuild.

The 10 Count

1.  We have to start with some sad news in what is this week’s first (and worst) Boxer Behaving Badly – Edwin Valero has been arrested in his native Venezuela and charged with killing his wife, according to the Dow Jones news service.

Valero’s wife was found dead in a hotel room Sunday morning. Initial reports were that she had several stab wounds. Valero, 28, was found soon thereafter on hotel property and was arrested.

Valero had recently entered rehab – one report said it was for drug and alcohol addiction, another report said it was for anger management – after recent allegations he’d assaulted his wife. Valero’s wife said she’d fallen down the stairs, however, and charges were dropped.

Hindsight is 20/20. If these murder allegations prove to be true, then those warning signs will haunt those close to the situation.

Valero had captured world titles at junior lightweight and lightweight and was 27-0 with 27 knockouts. But really, who cares about that at this point?

Damn.

2.  Moving on, if possible…

3.  Bute With A Beauty (Again):

Nov. 28, 2009: Lucian Bute knocks out Librado Andrade with a single left hand to the body.

April 17, 2010: Lucian Bute stops Edison Miranda with a single uppercut to the chin.

Might as well say what I said following Bute-Andrade, with only the name of the opponent changing:

“Here’s hoping Lucian Bute keeps busy and stays in the spotlight while six of his fellow 168-pounders take part in Showtime’s super middleweight tournament.

“Bute sent a message or two with his stellar knockout this past Saturday of Edison Miranda, letting HBO know he is a fighter worth continuing to spotlight, and letting the tournament contestants know there’s a legitimate challenge to any claim that the winner of the ‘Super Six’ is the best super middleweight around.

“The winner must face Lucian Bute for such recognition. Of course, Bute must stay undefeated in the meantime.”

4.  The post-fight interview with Bute included talk of a potential bout with Bernard Hopkins.

My question: Would Hopkins be willing to be the low end of the purse split?

It would have to be that way. Hopkins’ rematch with Roy Jones Jr. earlier this month pulled in just $1,198,200, with only 4,240 tickets sold and another 2,311 tickets given away, and there were 3,272 unsold tickets, according to USA Today. The pay-per-view figures are rumored to be somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000.

Bute, meanwhile, had more than 16,000 people in the Bell Centre in Montreal for his fight with Miranda, according to HBO announcer Bob Papa.

5.  Side note: Wouldn’t it be great to see Hopkins face Bute in Montreal just to see him come to the ring to the tune of South Park’s “Blame Canada”?

6.  The metaphorical wisdom of Teddy Atlas, as brought to you on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights” during Round 2 of Tony Thompson-Owen Beck:

“Thompson is the ocean, Joe, and Beck is just a log. He’s being pulled in and out by the tide of Thompson. I think the log, being Beck, is about to come driftwood.”

7.  Tony Thompson is a Mr. Perfect fan. Who knew?

“Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig had a shtick in which he would chew gum, spit it out and then smack it mid-air.

Thompson, following his stoppage win over Beck, walked across the ring, spit his mouthpiece out and gave it a right hook.

8.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part two: Former middleweight contender Howard Eastman was arrested in Guyana on April 10 and charged with drug trafficking after police discovered 100 grams of cannabis sativa leaves, seeds and stems in his home, according to that country’s Stabroek News.

Eastman pleaded not guilty. His next court date is April 30.

The 39-year-old has a record of 46 wins (36 knockouts) and six losses, including defeats in title bouts against Bernard Hopkins and William Joppy. His last appearance was in September, a 10th-round knockout victory.

9.  Boxers Behaving Badly, part three: Retired welterweight Eamonn Magee has been charged with threatening to kill his ex-wife and a former girlfriend, according to Northern Ireland newspaper the Belfast Telegraph.

Magee, 38, is accused of breaking into a house and stealing his ex-wife’s purse, wallet and credit cards, and of damaging her car. He’s also been charged with harassing his former girlfriend, violating a protective order on multiple occasions.

Earlier this year, Magee won an appeal that overturned a guilty verdict on a charge of assaulting a man in a social club.

Magee left the sport in 2007 with a record of 27-6 (18 knockouts).

10.  Let’s end on a light note and marvel at the nonstop 90-punch barrage Fernando Guerrero sent forth in the second round against Michael Walker this past Friday on “ShoBox: The New Generation.”

Let’s end on a light note and ponder what would’ve happened had that fight taken place on HBO instead of Showtime and how many times Jim Lampley would’ve said “BANG!” during that sequence.

David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com