by James Slater: It seems as though the eagerly anticipated world middleweight showdown between champion Kelly Pavlik and challenger Paul Williams has some kind of a jinx attached to it. As fans know, the match-up that will pit the middleweight king with the former 147 and 154-pound titlist has already been postponed once, due to a staph infection suffered by Youngstown’s Pavlik.
One of “The Ghost’s” fingers on his left hand was the cause of the problem, and though the treatment Pavlik received was believed to have cleared up the problem – so much so that a second press conference recently took place re-announcing the super fight – it seems the gun was jumped by Team-Pavlik.
According to a news article that has appeared in The Youngstown Vindicator newspaper (the story also having been picked up by Ring on line) the December 5th fight is to be postponed for a second time, because the middleweight champion’s staph infection has not gone away..
Much to the disappointment and regret of Pavlik’s trainer, Jack Loew, his fighter has been unable to hit properly with his left hand, even though Pavlik has been trying his best to train for the big fight.
“He’s trying,” Loew said of his fighter. “He’s been running, he’s been trying to train in the gym. He’s trying to shadow box with one hand, hit the speed bag with one hand. I’ve been trying to keep it a secret but it’s not going great and I’m not going to fool anybody any longer.”
The word is, Team-Pavlik have asked for a new date of January 23rd.
This is terrible news. However unavoidable the second postponement seems to have been, fans everywhere will be extremely angry and disappointed. Will Williams and his team want to wait around until next year for the fight? What if Pavlik can’t make that date also? Williams last fought in April, when he beat Winky Wright, and it’s likely “The Punisher” will not want to stay out of action for a full nine months.
As for Pavlik, he has not boxed since his retirement stoppage of Mexico’s Marco Antonio Rubio; that fight taking place way back in February of this year.
So far, the December fight has NOT officially been postponed, but going by what Jack Loew has had to say, things do not look all that good at all. All we can do now is hope. Stay tuned for more info.