THE CRUEL TEACHER
TEARS FELL WHEN BERNARD HOPKINS TAUGHT KELLY PAVLIK ALL ABOUT BOXING
ON October 18, 2008, Kelly Pavlik entered the ring at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City intent upon scoring a decisive victory over Bernard Hopkins. He didn’t have to knock Hopkins out. But he was committed to fashioning a triumph that left no doubt as to which man was the better fighter. “I want everybody to know that I beat Hopkins,” Pavlik said. “And I want Bernard to know that I beat him too.”
Pavlik was born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. In 2008, the national economy was experiencing what Youngstown had endured for three decades. Since 1980, as jobs vanished, the city’s population had dropped from 115,000 to 80,000. It had the lowest median income in the United States among cities with 65,000 people or more.
Pavlik had stayed close to his roots. He and his wife lived with their 22-month-old daughter in Boardman, a community adjacent to Youngstown. And Kelly was the proverbial local boy made good. On September 29, 2007, he’d dethroned Jermain Taylor to become middleweight champion of the world.
After Pavlik beat Taylor, Youngstown and the surrounding environs embraced their new hero. Kelly threw out the ceremonial first pitch before Game 4 of the American League Championship series between the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox, sat beside the legendary Jim Brown after presiding over the coin toss at a Cleveland Browns football game, and addressed the Ohio State Buckeyes before they took to the gridiron to play arch-rival Michigan. “These are teams I’ve rooted for my whole life,” he said. “It was awesome.”
“THE WORLD EXPECTED A BORING FIGHT THAT IT WAS ASSUMED PAVLIK WOULD WIN”
Yet through it all, Pavlik maintained a self-effacing sense of humour. When a reporter asked, “Do you think that you can take the place of Oscar De La Hoya [as the face of boxing] after De La Hoya retires?”,
