By Patrick Kehoe
The difference separating world middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik and former champion Jermain Taylor might be thought of as the divide between confidence and trust. Jermain Taylor has worked hard at his Las Vegas training camp, under the paternalistic tutelage of Ozell Nelson, to reinvest his boxing with sharpened fundamentals, elite level fitness upgrades, and most preciously an affirming trust in his adaptive boxing skills. For Jermain Taylor trusts in his boxing ability. He has no other choice moving forward into the breach.
Back in Youngstown, Ohio, Kelly Pavlik continues on with the mission of dominance stamped on Taylor during their seven rounds of middleweight championship struggle September 29, 2007, at the Boardwalk Hall, in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Where Pavlik keeps to the internal logic of what produced his best boxing, under the duress of leaping from contender to champion, Taylor has had to discover a personal renaissance – rebirth – in his own excellence. The pride of Little Rock Arkansas shadowboxes, peering into mirrors and the eyes of Nelson, listening for the reassuring echoes of his earlier glories, reframing the images and imaginings of his ultimate dream of a champion’s return.
Jack Loew and Kelly Pavlik speak with one voice, a unified field of certitude that puts little stock in the talk of Taylor recreating his championship form. “Not sure what he can do differently... He’s going to be giving it everything; his pride was wounded... Thing is Ozell was with him in the amateurs and he was the one who taught Taylor all his bad habits... Steward might be gone but that hasn’t changed.”
Jermain Taylor believes that in climbing the mountain to take down the great Bernard Hopkins left him without a clear purpose beyond making money. To confidants, he admits that some of his pre-Hopkins passion for fighting cooled, at the very moment he took control of the middleweight division. Losing a championship is one of the elementary tests of championship metal. Ring history tell us being knocked out in losing a championship sets before those daring the most treacherous terrain to successfully retrace, the most dangerous ground to reclaim.
The temptation is always to go back to the beginning and try and rebuild the edifice of trusting in what made one a habitual winner – marshalled trust – able to execute each and every elementary facets of a champion’s arsenal. No wonder Team Pavlik are slightly bemused that Taylor would take the option for an immediate rematch, and fighting over the middleweight limit where they believe Pavlik will only be more dangerous, more physically comfortable having another 6 pounds to fill out his 6’2” frame.
Pavlik admits he can only speculate, “he took it pretty hard... he’s got a lot of pride, so I guess he wanted to try and get back at me as quick as he could.” Pride tempts the fallen, reminding some of what was once most prized.
So, Taylor fiendishly works to rehabilitate his body and mind for the task of nothing less than recapturing his future in the championship elite of professional boxing. If Taylor cannot beat Pavlik, he knows relegation awaits him, perhaps retirement. Running Mount Charles has been the ex-champion’s happy burden of redemptive trial. Taylor has also, for weeks, borne the brunt of cyberspace ridicule in his sledgehammer welding training camp imitation of Pavlik and fighters of yesteryear, mainly because he’s trying to trust in the externals, the tireless picture of himself at work. He knows he must investigate all levels of pain, attempting to leave nothing to chance in his all out ambition to be the more dominant physical specimen at fight time. So Taylor has toiled to face the expectation of daily endurance strained to its limit.
Standing one inch shorter than Pavlik, Taylor intends to be the physical specimen in the ring when they meet; at least, he must believe that to be more than just possible. Telling the press that he didn’t train to his absolute maximum last summer comes across as a necessary rationalization, be it the truth or some self-serving version of the truth.
Essential for Taylor has been his inhabiting the role of the predatory warrior – much in the same vein as the Jermain Taylor who successfully stalked Hopkins – pushing himself past the paralysis and shock he suffered against Pavlik. Team Pavlik understand that you do not need to throw too many incendiary devices for the media to disseminate all the psychological fall out a champion needs to shower his target with doubt, for example: “Neurologically and mentally we don’t know how he’s going to react... He might start out fast and try and throw it all early... but... that knockout was pretty wicked... Who knows how it affected him?”
Pavlik leaves the question open for us and for Team Taylor to ponder. The champion of the middleweights holds on dearly to the philosophy of simple works best. Trainer Jack Loew and he have promised to keep to their game plan from the first fight, with a variation on a theme.
“I definitely know I didn’t use the jab nearly as much as we planned,” Pavlik admits to his shortcomings, shortcomings that were more than enough last time out. “We have to use the jab more in this fight because I definitely have the better jab, a much strong jab than he does. I out jabbed him when I used it, every time.”
Pavlik lets the irony of his having out jabbed Taylor fill in many of the blanks, for those who thought of Taylor as the better technical boxer heading into their first fight or the guy who can still be the better boxer on the day, come February 16. Taylor long praised for his jab during his title winning and defending fights suddenly finds himself relegated as ‘the other guy’ in and around middleweight with a big jab. Clearly, Pavlik leaves the impression of a hungry guy who takes the opportunities as they come, as so many laurels he sees laying about.
And no question, we can hear in Pavlik’s assertion of his technical prowess – the parallel to his absolute belief in his being the dominant puncher between 160 and 175 – his entire professional persona registers in his quiet insistence, the confidence of a champion. Champions know how good they are projecting the aura of being able to instantaneously make the necessary happen. They are the subject and object of being in doing. Kelly Pavlik gives the impression of a man who doesn’t indulge in the anxiety of needing to fret and worry about how Jermain Taylor is training or labour under the strains of trying to calculate every possible counter measure to ward off Taylor’s mounting charge. If Taylor believes, Pavlik knows.
Team Pavlik emanate the certitude of knowing the future – an act of folly or hubris though that so often is in boxing – the sensation, nevertheless, feels real, the confidence in camp palpable. No wonder Team Pavlik seem content to dare to be self-defining, believing in the adage of taking care of what they can control and avoiding all extraneous matters.
“I’m a simple guy and I like to do things around the house and spend time with my daughter, simple things... some great things come with winning the title... but... but now the target is now on my back... so it’s back to work... it’s the same game plan... I don’t need to change nothing really... We just have to pick up the pace, and land the clearer and sharper punches...”
Jack Loew simply does not believe that Jermain Taylor can physically match Pavlik. “It’s all too late, what he’s doing we have been doing for years.” With a superior jab comes opportunity to hit harder and land more telling blows. And Loew believes that will happen for Pavlik because of his lightweight like work rate of throwing up around 100 punches, in attack mode, per round.
Having been able to eat high protein and high carbohydrate meals for so many weeks, unburdened with having to regimentally diet to get down to 160, Pavlik sees himself as being the monster in this match-up, ‘The Ghost’ being the real terror, if you will. For all Taylor’s heroic training camp photo-oping, he’s never been known as a high end cardio specimen, notably fading in the latter rounds against a retreating and counter punching Hopkins.
If the rematch comes down to a test of endurance, Pavlik likes his chances, every time. “Taylor starts out fast, he tires though, at the end of rounds,” Pavlik direly notes. “And we always train for 12 rounds. We don’t think knockout only... we are ready for anything, any pace.”
Of course he is. Undefeated fighters, especially those that take titles with highlight reel knockouts, believe everything is possible, everything remains within their reach, grasp. If the best have tried and failed against you, what, ultimately, is there to fear? Pavlik can even offer up details to prove Taylor’s limitations. “He really hasn’t changed since he was an amateur... His left hand is in the exact same place as before, nothing has changed.”
Pavlik’s other voice, Loew, makes a deeper cut describing Taylor’s missed opportunity to score a knockout of his own, when he floored Pavlik in the second round: “He was swinging like an amateur and he blew it and that’s it.”
As far as Team Pavlik is concerned, nothing has really changed with Taylor, nothing of dire consequence. The tipping point and Jermain Taylor’s impeccable credentials were lost when Pavlik made it out of that almost fateful round. And confidence lived trumps trust embodied, every time. Doesn’t it?
As far as Kelly Pavlik is concerned, when you know something is the truth, how can someone make a liar out of you?
Patrick Kehoe may be reached at pkehoe@telus.net