Kelly Pavlik Returns Against Espino; Ready For The Future
By Cliff Rold (photo by Chris Farina/Top Rank)
After spending most of 2009 on the shelf due to a staph infection in his hand, 27-year old World Middleweight Champion Kelly Pavlik (36-1, 32 KO) made his first start since February a successful one in his hometown, dropping 29-year old Miguel Espino (20-3-1, 9 KO) of North Hollywood, California, three times en route to a fifth round stoppage at the Beeghly Center in Youngstown, Ohio.
Pavlik weighed in for the contest right at the Middleweight limit of 160 lbs., Espino a pound below at 159. Espino was making his first attempt at a World title and suffered his first loss since the opening round of the debut edition of the Contender reality series in 2004.
Espino wasted little time picking a fight, firing a left hook as Pavlik reached out to touch gloves at the start of the first round. It set a tone which would carry for all of those opening three minutes and both men warred at close quarters, raking each other to the body and firing short hooks to the head. Espino’s aggression put him behind quickly when he fired a foul shot around referee Steve Smoger and at the champion after the closing bell. Smoger immediately deducted a point and Espino smiled in his corner as his corner chastised the move, instantly recognizing he’d gotten a little carried away.
The challenger would be warned in the second for low blows but no points were lost as another bruising exchange of body trading developed. Pavlik briefly stunned Espino with an uppercut to the head but Espino covered up and clinched to recover his senses quickly. By the third, Pavlik was stepping out occasionally to create room for his long, straight right hand but the phone booth remained the comfort zone for both, each landing with sharp shots to the head and body even if Espino was to be warned once more for straying beneath the waist with his shots.
Pavlik’s willingness to give Espino chances for offense in order to land his own paid off big in the fourth. A minute into the round, Pavlik slammed a left uppercut home through the guard of Espino, the challenger wilting to his knees. Smoger tolled the count and Espino made it back to his feet at eight, nodding he was okay to continue. As Pavlik stepped in for the finish, Espino covered up and fought back, heaving right hands until yet another left uppercut sneaked from below his guard and sent him to his knees again. Espino rose again, stepped forward again, and took three more uppercuts but refused to fall again before the round ended.
Pavlik took barely a step off his stool before he found a charging Espino to begin the fifth. The show of courage and bravado received no rewards as Pavlik, still giving Espino plenty of room to land, absorbed leather only to dish out a more lethal variety. At the midway point of the round, yet another left uppercut was followed with a left hook and right hand to sink Espino to his knees once more. Espino rose and Smoger allowed the contest to continue for only seconds more before the corner of Espino rose to the ring apron to halt the beating, Smoger stepping in while hollering, “Time. You’re out of it baby. You’re out of it. Done. Done.” The official time of the stoppage was 1:44 of round five.
Pavlik, making the third defense of the lineal Middleweight crown he won from Jermain Taylor in September 2007, was realistic about the rougher than expected win. “I didn’t plan on (fighting inside). There was a little bit of rust in there tonight. I tip my hat to the kid. He came to fight.”
It didn’t take long for talk to turn to Middleweight contender and former Welterweight titlist Paul Williams (38-1, 27 KO). Williams was initially expected to be Pavlik’s opponent this month but a slow healing Pavlik staph infection caused delays which cancelled that fight at least for this year. Pavlik’s promoter, Bob Arum, got into the action.
“Kelly had a contract, signed by Kelly and by Paul Williams, to fight on December 5. Kelly’s hand didn’t allow that fight to happen, but the contracts were signed, and I say this to those loud mouth guys who are with Williams.” Arum began. “Just initial the contract. We’ll do it first thing next year. That’s all they have to do. The terms are set up. And if they don’t do it, let them shut their damn mouths.”
Pavlik quickly jumped in to add, “And then I will be the most feared fighter and avoided fighter in boxing,” a riff on the label many apply to Williams. Continuing on his rival, Pavlik stated, “I want him. Listen, we wanted him and we ended up fighting Hopkins because he pulled out of the fight. That’s why we jumped up two weight classes to fight Bernard Hopkins because Paul Williams pulled out of the fight. And this last fight, we signed the contract a month before he did. Unfortunately with the staph infection, which was medically proven, we couldn’t fight it, so, Paul Williams, you’re not the most feared fighter. You got a guy standing right now in Youngstown, Ohio that wants you.”
Pavlik would not provide the only main event of the evening as Saturday presented a split telecast which included action from the Arena Itson in Ciudad Obregon, Sonora, Mexico.
In the Mexican headliner, 30-year old Venezuelan Bantamweight Nehomar Cermeno (19-0, 11 KO), 118, of Panama City, Panama, scored his third major victory of 2009 with an eleventh round technical knockout of hometown hero Alejandro Valdez (22-4-2, 16 KO), 118.
With the win, Cermeno retained the interim WBA belt and his road to a shot at WBA beltholder Anselmo Moreno (28-1-1, 10 KO) in 2010.
Both men largely took the measure of each other in the opening frame, the southpaw Valdez’s lanky frame and slight height advantage working with his jab to keep Cermeno cautious. The key moment would come near the middle of the round as an accidental clash of heads brought a crimson stream from the right eye of the hometown fighter. The doctor took a long look at the eye of Valdez in the corner before allowing the bout to continue and Valdez pressed forward while Cermeno looked for openings for his right hand.
He would instead find one for his left shortly into the second round as a sweeping hook sent Valdez to his knee. Valdez rose quickly, blood again streaming from the eye, and Cermeno pounced with accurate power shots. It wouldn’t be a punch which assisted in Cermeno’s increased fortune as the round hit the halfway point. Circling to his left, Valdez’s left foot slipped on the ring paint and as he began to slide to a knee Cermeno landed a clipping right hand which the referee mistook for causing Valdez’s second trip to the floor in the round. Valdez shook his head, frustrated, as he listened to the mandatory eight count and prepared to return to battle.
Surprisingly, it was Cermeno who fought as if everything was going against him. Almost desperate for an ending, Cermeno pursued with occasionally off balance and wild power swings, hoping to end the contest before the cut over Valdez’s eye could halt the contest without his hand being raised. Any worry that the rules could work against him (fights ended before the end of the fourth on an accidental foul result do not produce a winner) would go away in rounds three and four. Calmed down, Cermeno patiently allowed Valdez to come to him and used accurate counters to build his lead into the fifth.
Zeroing in with right hands between the wide shots of Valdez, Cermeno played the perimeter of the ring and boxed Valdez through most of round five but the determination of Valdez was evident and paid off in the closing seconds. Shortening his left hook, Valdez stunned Cermeno in the waning seconds and brought the crowd to its feet with his best series of sustained action on the night.
A heated exchange marked the start of round six but the contest quickly turned to cat and mouse, Cermeno choosing to circle and move more feverishly while Valdez came forward. Another clash of heads brought a brief halt to the action but Valdez wasn’t cut and the chase resumed. Loose tape on the glove of Cermeno brought a humorous respite in the seventh as, following the referee’s time out to repair it, Cermeno’s corner was revealed to have forgotten scissors. The corner man failing in a struggle to bite the excess tape loose, he settled with simply taping over it. Stylistically, the fight remained the same, Ceremeno’s feet and occasionally accurate counters trumping Valdez’s attempts to corner him.
A popping right landed for Cermeno to open round eight and Cermeno rarely missed with the punch while Valdez was forced to settle for wishful hooks in the clinches. Circling less, Cermeno stayed closer as the round progressed, resting inside and working in some digging body blows. Such was not the case in rounds nine and ten as the elements of footrace surfaced too often. Cermeno was still landing more punches but one wondered if it would be rewarded against a hometown battler who was trying to make a fight.
The frequent head clashes, a theme throughout the first ten rounds, drew a warning early in the eleventh. Moments later, Cermeno would get even more than a warning, deducted a point after a clinch when Valdez complained that Cermeno had kneed him in the leg. The deduction stoked a fire in Cermeno.
Coming forward and backing Valdez up, Cermeno turned destroyer, weaving inside with hooks and crosses to unsettle the challenger. A big left hook as Valdez stood with his back to the ropes brought a crook to his knee and sent him pitching forward as Cermeno backed away to give himself punching room. A wild left from Cermeno missed but, with only thirty second left in the round, a left uppercut did not, whipping Valdez’s head backwards and into range of an immediately following left hook to drive him into the corner and to the floor. Valdez rolled onto his stomach and reached his feet at eight but referee Russell Mora had seen enough and halted the contest at 2:40 of the eleventh round.
In as exciting a scoring shutout as one could ask for on the Mexican undercard, 29-year old WBC Jr. Lightweight titlist Humberto Soto (50-7-2, 32 KO), 137, of Tijuana, Mexico, battled his way to a ten-round unanimous decision over 37-year old countryman and former Jr. Lightweight and Lightweight titlist Jesus Chavez (44-7, 30 KO), 137, of Austin, Texas, in non-title action.
The younger Soto didn’t take long to assert himself, snapping hard left jabs at the stalking Chavez and then catching him with a long right hand to send Chavez to a knee at center ring. Chavez, who fights often with his head low, took the blow to the back of the head and rose quickly as the referee counted. Chavez returned to his pressing ways, bulling Soto into the ropes but Soto fought comfortably for most of what should have been the last minute, countering with right hands and left uppercuts while Chavez struggled to catch his man with something meaningful. The bell ended the round some twenty seconds early as Soto was coming off the ropes and forward with an offensive flurry.
Between rounds, Chavez’s corner complained of the shot behind the head which caused the knockdown and Chavez opened the second with spirit, running Soto into the ropes and letting loose a long right. Switching quickly to southpaw and then back to an orthodox stance, Chavez was blitzed with a pair of right hands that appeared to stun him. As the round unfolded, Soto repeatedly went to the ropes, ripping Chavez while the veteran tried to work Soto’s body in another round which ended with more ten seconds left on the clock.
A Chavez right to the body shook Soto immediately after the bell to begin the third and would increasingly move towards even terms with Soto over that round and the fourth. Being outlanded, Chavez’s connections improved as he found space for the left hook by being willing to punch while he was getting hit. When Chavez’s strategy lead to understandable fatigue, when it appeared Soto was about to take over late in the fifth, Chavez even went dirty by horse collaring Soto in a clinch and spinning him through the ropes and nearly out of the ring. A brief break was called as Soto shook out a leg which was at least badly canvas burned. Chavez was deducted a point before action resumed with a heated exchange and staredown between the two men.
Soto reached out his left glove at the start of the sixth as if to say ‘no hard feelings’ but his feelings had to change less than a minute into the round. Soto absorbed a right to the back and then taunted Chavez before crashing home a right hand to the face. Chavez responded with an echoing shot to the groin of Soto who crumpled to the mat as if shot. The bout was halted for a few minutes while Soto recovered and it took little time, once action resumed, for both men to open up with winging power shots. The violent exchange slowed down in the final minute of the round but there enough in Soto’s tank for a closing salvo of blows off the ropes to end round six.
Through rounds seven, eight, and nine Soto’s greater accuracy and speed kept him the step ahead of Chavez he’d been all night but it was never boring as Chavez speared forward. While clearly a fight which favored Soto, it had been a bruising affair and both men showed respect to one another as they embraced at center ring prior to the final three minutes. It would take two of those for the fight to break out one last time. A big Soto right rocked Chavez and the Jr. Lightweight champ opened up with both hands in search of a knockout ending but Chavez would not oblige and the fans applauded for both as the final bell sounded. The scores were elementary and unanimous for Soto at 100-87.
Soto remains the WBC Jr. Lightweight titlist for now but is expected to remain at Lightweight and seek a shot at a belt in his third weight class. Soto briefly was recognized as the WBC’s interim Featherweight titlist in 2006.
In the televised opener, broadcast from Youngstown, Armenian-born 23-year old 2004 U.S. Olympian Vanes Martirosyan (26-0, 17 KO) of Glendale, California, took another step towards contention in the Jr. Middleweight division with a commanding third round stoppage of 29-year old Willie Lee (17-6, 11 KO) of Gulfport, Mississippi. Martirosyan, 153, made an early statement with the right hand, badly hurting Lee in the first round. Lee, 152 ½, a southpaw, weathered the storm and continued to fire back, landing a big left hand in the closing seconds of the round to back Martirosyan up.
The tough Lee battled hard throughout the second, coming forward even as Martirosyan continued to outland him. In the third, a flurry of activity saw Lee’s mouthpiece knocked out and ended with another flush Maritrosyan right hand which scored a knockdown. Lee struggled to make it to his feet as referee Randy Jarvis reached nine. A quick break was called to reinsert the mouthpiece and then action resumed. It got no better for Lee. Trapping his man near the corner, Martirosyan let loose with left and right hands to the head, the final two driving Lee again towards the floor as Jarvis stepped in to halt the action at 2:13 of round three.
It was Lee’s first loss since dropping back to back contests in 2006. Martirosyan can hope to improve on his current 154 lbs. ratings off this victory. He is currently rated #8 by the IBF, #12 by the WBC, and #14 by the WBA.
Other Televised Results
Featherweights: Miguel Angel Garcia (19-0, 16 KO) TKO3 Yogli Herrera (22-13, 15 KO)
Middleweights: Matt Korobov (9-0, 7 KO) TKO3 Ken Dunham (6-12-1, 4 KO)
Saturday’s card was broadcast on pay-per-view in the United States and promoted by Top Rank Inc
