it was fun while it lasted, kelly

Maybe Kelly Pavlik got his wish: He no longer has to carry the city of Youngstown on his shoulders.

This week's news that Pavlik has pulled out of a scheduled fight for the third time in 2009 because of a staph infection in his left hand leads me to believe his short career is over.


The fighter, who earlier this year said he was seeing a sports psychologist to deal with rumors combined with the stresses of fame, only defended his middleweight championship twice before a disastrous year of accidents, injuries, accusations and lost opportunities.

The third, and most would argue the only formidable defense, was originally scheduled for Oct. 3 against quick-punching left-hander Paul Williams. Pavlik backed out of that date, citing an injury to his hand, and quickly began working on rescheduling.

Both camps came to agreement with HBO that the fight would be scheduled for Dec. 5 in Atlantic City. On Sept. 29, at a press conference announcing the fight, Pavlik said, "The hand's looking good. Everything's fine."

Speaking to the injury, Pavlik said, "We got it taken care of, we kicked it in the butt and we're ready to roll."

Then, six weeks before the fight was to take place, Pavlik's camp held a press conference saying his hand will not have fully healed by Dec. 5.

HBO had built a schedule around the fight and was in the process of putting together a half-hour preview. Top Rank (Pavlik's promoter) had spent thousands on marketing the fight. Caesars Atlantic City was looking for a big boost with a sold-out crowd expected at Boardwalk Hall. Fans had booked travel plans and hotel rooms. And Williams started preparing for, training for and promoting a fight that was built on Team Pavlik's naive optimism.

"It's not the hand that needs to be corrected, they need to treat his heart," Williams' trainer George Peterson told a boxing website. "We are not waiting on this guy anymore."

I don't question Kelly Pavlik's heart--I think he'd step in the ring with a grizzly bear. What I question is his thought process. Why tell everyone the hand is fine when it's clearly not? Why reschedule a fight when the hand isn't healed?

Instead of "trying to keep it a secret" and "fool" everyone as Jack Loew admitted to the Youngstown Vindicator, Team Pavlik would have been much better off admitting in September the hand was not healing properly and it would be a long time before he could fight again. He would have got much more sympathy from his supporters that way, rather than forcing them to cancel plans and lose already-spent money.

Pavlik had issues with his hands as an amateur. He said he first discovered the current infection two weeks after his last fight, Feb. 21. That means he's been battling the infection for eight months. If surgeries on the hand were as intense as Pavlik claims they were, I simply don't see him coming back from this injury.

If in fact Pavlik's career is over, it was a career that was cut short and never lived up to expectations. Sure, he won good fights against Jose Luis Zertuche and Edison Miranda. He beat Jermain Taylor to win the middleweight championship ... the same 32-year-old Jermain Taylor who went on to lose three of his next four fights, including a Pavlik rematch.

Submitted by boxing guru Brian Richesson, here are 10 possible opponents who could have helped solidify Pavlik's career:

• Paul Williams
• Arthur Abraham
• Felix Sturm
• Winky Wright
• Joe Calzaghe
• Librado Andrade
• Mikkel Kessler
• Carl Froch
• Allan Green
• Randy Griffin

If I were a betting man, I'd say we won't see any of these fights, which is both disappointing and unfortunate. Pavlik had a nice 15 minutes in the spotlight when he was the blue-collar underdog from Lowellville. But like the rest of Youngstown, his best days are in the past.