The Ghost haunts Taylor
By Kishan Nundloll 01/11/07
Kelly ‘ the ghost’ Pavlik showed the heart of a true champion to pick himself up from the canvas and become the new middleweight champion of the world. His victory over previously undefeated Jermaine ‘Bad intentions’ Taylor, was a joy to behold and puts Pavlik on the world map, the also previously undefeated Pavlik who hails from Ohio was merciless in the ring, his work rate and strength really shaking the former champion.
Taylor looked eager and very determined on his arrival into the ring at Atlantic City, his focus and belief seemed to be accurate when he sent Pavlik stumbling to the canvas with a heart-stopping jab to the exposed face of Pavlik in the second round. He continued his barrage of pounces in the round, but far too many were wasted and Taylor didn’t have enough in the tank to get the job done, fatigue becoming obvious towards the latter part of the round. Taylor also admitted after the fight that his judgment and his choice of punches in that infamous second round is what cost him the fight.
As the fighters left their respective corners in the third round, most were expecting Taylor to come out and finish the fight, but Pavlik had other thoughts hurting Taylor with a variety of punches, but mostly using his straight right hand to the face of Taylor to great effect, Pavlik never took a step back in any round, choosing instead to go toe to toe with the lethal Taylor who was hesitant at first but after the knockdown sensed blood and also choose to trade punches with his opponent.
Taylor always looked in more trouble in the middle stint of the fight, whenever he found himself close to the ropes Pavlik gave him no room to breathe and kept finding Taylor wit punches that proved to be too much for Taylor. Who in the seventh found himself hurt with a straight right and then a devastating uppercut which sent him crashing to the floor, and with that inflicted on him was his first defeat as a professional boxer, the referee had no need to count as Taylor would never had made the count, but he could have stopped the fight a few seconds earlier Taylor looked in a world of trouble and after the uppercut the referee should have separated the men and stopped the fight. Taylor took three or four punches that he didn’t have too.
Yet nothing should be taken away from the champion who claimed his thirty-second victory as a professional in spectacular fashion. Prior to this Pavlik had stopped Edison Miranda in similar fashion, but had never been up against someone with the pedigree of Taylor, who had fought the middleweight king Bernard Hopkins twice and the champion of defensive boxing Ronald winky Wright (a fight he lost, in my opinion), so with that in mind Pavlik can be immensely proud of his sensational victory, especially when considering that after the second round knockdown the writing looked on the wall for the new champion, but it is testament to his heart , courage and his character that he picked himself up ,got beat up some more and when his chance came took it. A true champion in every sense. As for Taylor, he shouldn’t be too distraught and a rematch is already being talked about. Taylor as mentioned before has never avoided the big fights and will never back down, but in this case he should regroup and maybe have warm-up fight before he gets back in the ring with Pavlik.
This battle of the undefeated boxers really exceeded the expectations of the boxing world, it would be a delight to see these men lock horns once more, but something tells me that ‘The ghost’ will be the person everyone will be looking to see.