The Pavlik Blame Game

Joe Roche 3 More Rounds August 4, 2011 http://64.19.142.12/3morerounds.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/KPavlik.jpg I’m in the process of working on a piece that I think might expand into a two part feature and as such this week’s regularly scheduled column is a bit of a jumbled mess – which is ironically, or non-ironically why I thought I’d just touch on the Kelly Pavlik situation. For those of you who don’t know the sordid details – well here we go, in short, Kelly Pavlik will not be fighting Darryl Cunningham on Saturday night on Showtime. The news came on Tuesday, four (4) days before the scheduled bout, and resulted in the cancelation of the entire card, including the Showtime broadcast leaving a slew of people in the wake of destruction for seemingly no real reason. If you listen to Pavlik, in his own words, backing out of the Cunningham fight was some great moment of clarity by the former middleweight champion who suddenly realized that he was being abused by Top Rank, underpaid for the fight, and in his own words he was “tired of being a puppet.” When the story began to leak there were rumors that Pavlik was not satisfied with the 1.1 million dollar guaranteed money that he was going to receive for a bout with Lucian Bute following the Cunningham fight on Saturday night. That number rose to about $1.35 million before the end of the day, but that’s not even the most interesting part of the story. According to Top Rank, and Jack Loew, the Bute fight hadn’t even been finalized – this was not a two fight contract – meaning Pavlik wasn’t costing himself money by fighting Cunningham and at the end of the day he just left $1.35 million guaranteed on the table because of an immature, unprofessional, and unstable decision to pull out of a Showtime bout four days before the fight. Once everyone realized that Pavlik was full of shet – he changed his story. The tune he’s playing now involves the fact that the Cunningham bout was for $50,000 on five weeks’ notice – and that wasn’t acceptable to Pavlik because back when he was a hot commodity he was making three to seven times that much to fight. Of course there are two problems with the logic of this illogical counter-argument to his own original argument, the first being that four years ago Kelly Pavlik was a beast, who sold tickets, brought in viewers, entertained fight fans and was a decorated champion – yes you made $3.5 million to fight Bernard Hopkins at light heavyweight, but that was a MAJOR championship bout against a living legend, this was a tune up fight for a world championship bout to be broadcast on ShoBox. The second problem is that Pavlik wasn’t offered the Cunningham fight two days ago. Trust me, as someone who has seen his fair share of contract negotiations, Kelly Pavlik was *WELL* aware of the $50,000 purse on this fight before Tuesday night, as a matter of fact he’s known for at least five weeks what his purse was, and if he had a problem he could’ve pulled out five weeks ago. That amount is not a Top Rank slap in the face to Kelly Pavlik, that amount is a standard ShoBox main event fight purse, Pavlik wasn’t being slapped in the face, he was being treated exactly the same way that everyone else is treated in this sport, and no he doesn’t get special treatment anymore because he hasn’t had a relevant fight since the Martinez bout and his last fight proved that he isn’t the commodity that he once was. http://64.19.142.11/3morerounds.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/MartinezPavlik1.jpg Pavlik has also taken every opportunity to slam two entities in particular – Cameron Dunkin, and Top Rank. I’m not even touching the Cameron Dunkin dispute with a ten foot pole, Pavlik isn’t the first fighter who has a problem with Dunkin and he won’t be the last. But Top Rank…I mean c’mon Kelly! Kelly Pavlik was the undisputed middleweight champion of the world who lost a bloody war with Sergio Martinez, went to rehab for alcoholism, returned thirteen months later to fight a lackluster decision again Alfonso Lopez and did nothing but destroy his reputation in the process. Top Rank didn’t try to get out of his contract, they wanted to rebuild him – they got him this fight on Showtime when in all reality Kelly Pavlik isn’t worth the time slot, and they lined him up for a payday against Lucian Bute. Would it have been as much of a payday as Mikkel Kessler received? Of course not and there was good reason for that – the first being that a Bute/Kessler fight in Europe would sell far more tickets and be seen on far more television sets than a Bute/Pavlik card and even Pavlik can’t dispute that. But also, for all the posturing, Mikkel Kessler is for all intents and purposes the WBC super middleweight champion (emeritus), and a bout with Bute would be a big deal in the most entertaining division in boxing. Kelly Pavlik isn’t Mikkel Kessler and he should realize that he won’t be treated as such – but for a guy who has one fight since April 2010, the fact that he’s even in line for a super middleweight title shot (a division he has barely fought in) is something that Top Rank should be commended for by the fighter and not bashed for. The story takes turns all over the place Top Rank, Showtime and Jack Loew (who has no reason not to lie for Pavlik) all say that the decision was essentially Kelly’s and his alone. Pavlik of course says that he was being a smart businessman – but when the individual who is solely reliant upon you being a good businessman (Loew) disagrees with that assessment, well something else is going on. With Kelly Pavlik, that “something else” is almost always going to be alcohol. There were rumors a week ago that Pavlik and his brother got into a very visable, and non-private confrontation – two days later he’s pulling out of the Cunningham fight. Pavlik has been in rehab, he has admittedly had problems with alcohol, and anyone with demons in their closet know that no matter who is on the other side of the ring, the hardest fight of your life is against yourself. This is the point in the article where I would normally rip into Pavlik, his unprofessional behavior, childish manner in handling himself and so on and so forth – but I’m not going to do that here. I don’t think Pavlik did the right thing – but I know how hard it is to fight a war with you, and frankly I can’t blame anyone who loses some rounds in that battle – all I can do is hope that they figure things out and get themselves back on the right track. I don’t think we’ll see Pavlik again for a long time. I think Top Rank will shelf him until his contract runs out, I don’t think Showtime will have him, and by the time he comes back (if at all) I’m not sure anyone who care (do they even care now?). But I sincerely hope that Kelly Pavlik takes this time off to reflect on how he got to this position, and truly begins to deal with the things that have put him here.