ATLANTIC CITY --- And you thought they called Kelly Pavlik “The Ghost” just because he had the approximate pigmentation of Casper. The Ghost lived up to his nickname Saturday night, coming back from the dead to score a 7th-round TKO over previously unbeaten Jermain Taylor to win the WBC and WBO middleweight titles before a raucous (and decidedly pro-Pavlik) crowd of 10,127.
Not only was Pavlik significantly behind on all three scorecards, but Taylor had come within a whisker of taking him out in the second round.
The matchup at Alantic City’s Boardwalk Hall was supposed to be a test of Pavlik’s vaunted punching power against Taylor’s smooth boxing skills, but the champion appeared to have turned the tables in the second, when he caught Pavlik with a counter right hand and then moved in to floor him with a right uppercut followed by a crunching left hook.
Pavlik struggled to his feet and gamely hung on. Taylor was unable to finish him, and by the time the round ended the challenger appeared to have recovered his legs.
“I was hurt. I was shook real bad,” admitted Pavlik afterward, but by the time he returned to his corner he seemed to have recovered his senses as well.
“Are you all right? Can you continue” Trainer Jack Lowe demanded, and when Pavlik responded in the affirmative, Lowe directed him to “go back to the double-jab.”
Over the next several rounds, it was Taylor who was repeatedly beating Pavlik to the punch, although the Ohioan dealt out some punishment of his own, particularly in clinches, when Taylor repeatedly failed to tie up both of his opponents hands, which allowed Pavlik to bang away until referee Steve Smoger saw fit to break them. (And Smoger, determined to let the fighters fight, seemed in no great hurry to break those clinches.)
Although Taylor was piling up points, he was expending considerable energy as well. And the end was sudden and stunning.
In the seventh, Pavlik missed with a jab but landed a straight right behind it, a punch that seemed to wobble Taylor, and as the champion backed away, Pavlik moved in to connect with a left uppercut, and, as Taylor retreated into Pavlik’s corner, followed it with a right uppercut and a left that crashed off the top of Taylor’s head as he was sinking to the floor.
Smoger was in between the fighters and had actually waved the fight off before Taylor even hit the canvas, but, said the referee later, “He was gone. He was a heap. I could have counted to 50.”
The end came at 2:14 of the seventh, ending Taylor’s championship reign in his fifth defense.
“Kelly fought a great fight,” said Taylor. “I thought I had hi in the second, but I probably threw too many punches ater I had him down. I used up a lot of energy trying to finish him off.”
One judge, Julie Lederman (59-55) had given Pavlik just one of the first six rounds. Guido Cavalieri and John Stewart had both scored it 58-55, as had Boxing Talk.
The CompuBox punchstats were indicative of the give-and-take battle. The 182 punches Taylor landed were just two more than Pavlik’s output, while the jabs were also nearly even (Pavlik 80, Taylor 77.) Although Taylor had a 105-100 edge in power shots, the last few of those that Pavlik landed spelled the difference in the fight.
“I can’t believe I lost; now it’s all about going to the drawing board,” said Taylor, 27-1-1 after absorbing his first loss. Earlier in the week Taylor appeared to be backing off his vow to move up to super-middleweight after the Pavlik fight. (Jermain did not struggle to make weight for this one; he was 164 four days before the fight and came in a pound under the divisional limit at the weigh-in.)
“I’d like to fight (Pavlik) my first fight back,” he said after the loss.
Pavlik now 32-0, did not address the possibility of a rematch, although it is understood that there may have been a rematch clause.
Rather, the Ghost rattled off names of fellow Buckeyes like Harry Arroyo and Boom-Boom Mancini and said “I can’t believe I’m up here with all these great Ohio champions. I’m proud to be remembered with them.”
In the co-feature, undefeated welterweight Andre Berto moved to 20-0 by stopping David Estrada in the 11th round of their grueling NABF title fight. Faced with as tough a customer as they come, Berto simply wore Estrada down in a wore of attrition until he decked him with a left-right combination early in the 11th. When Estrada got back up Berto drove him across the ring with a hard left hook and landed a fusillade of punches as referee David Fields moved in to rescue Estrada.
“Estrada was tough as hell,” said Berto. “He took a lot of hard shots. He came out tough, but once I started to jab I could tell I was wearing him down. I just kept up the pressure, working combinations, and when I finally caught him it was over.”
Berto’s 115 jabs connected were nearly 100 more than Estrada’s.
“I thought I’d hurt him early, but by the fourth or fifth round it started going all wrong for me,” said Estrada, now 21-4. “I was just getting beaten to the punch. He was just a better man.”
Michigan junior middle Ronald Hearns wasted little time in disposing of Ugandan veteran Robert Kamya, whom he decked twice on the way to a first-round TKO. Hearns (now 16-0) flattened Kamya with a roundhouse right early in the stanza, and then came back to put him down again, this time with a big left hook, leading referee Sammy Viruet to halt the action at 2:42 of the round. Kamya fell to 16-8 with the loss.
And Philadelphia-based heavyweight Chazz Witherspoon garnered his 20th win in as many pro fights with a fifth-round TKO of rugged Texan Ron Guerrero (19-15-3). Although there were no knockdowns, Witherspoon had meted out considerable punishment in the fifth, leading the ringside physician to advise Benji Estevez to stop it between rounds. (There was no argument from Guerrero.)
Puerto Rican junior middle Carlos Quintana, a recent DiBella signing, improved to 24-1 with a fourth-round TKO over Barbados veteran Christopher Henry (23-19). Quintana pretty much had his own way as long as it laster, and when he caught Henry with a crisp right hook/left uppercut combination that nearly lifted him off his feet, referee Sparkle Lee stopped it at 2:46 of the fourth.
It wasn’t a great night to be named Taylor or be from Arkansas. In the hours before the main event, light-heavyweight Tiwon Taylor got himself hammered silly by Omar Sheika and two of Jermain’s Little Rock homeys also lost their preliminary bouts.
Sheika (27-8), the Palestinian-born light-heavyweight from Paterson, scored a fourth-round TKO over Tiwon Taylor (26-14-1) of Greensboro, N.C. in their scheduled 8-rounder. A hard left to the body in the third round drove Taylor through the ropes and out of the ring, but referee Benji Estevez ruled that it had been a low blow. (It was on the beltline, but didn’t seem to be any more or less flagrant than several of its predecessors.)
Taylor, who had banged his head off the CompuBox punchstat monitor when he landed on the press table, took his time resuming action, and surivived the round. Then when Sheika decked him with another borderline shot in the fourth, Taylor eagerly went down, leading Estevez to deduct a point. The end wasn’t long in coming for Taylor, in any case. Shortly after action resumed, Sheika knocked him down with hard left off the side of his head, and although Taylor made it to his feet, his was still clutching his head when Estevez halted the bout at 2:25 of the round.
Not ten minutes later we stepped outside the arena and encountered Tiwon Taylor leaving the building. Equipment bag in hand, he was already walking down the Boardwalk, apparently in the direction of North Carolina.
The Smiths of Arkansas took a double-beating. Philadelphia journeyman Robert Hawkins hurt Terry Smith with a solid right in the second, causing his left eye to balloon for the remainder of their six-rounder. Hawkins (22-9) prevailed on all three cards (John Riley 60-54, Pierre Benoist 59-55, and Fareeq Rashada 58-56) to score the upset over Smith, now 30-3.
And Jermain Taylor’s hometown sparring partner Ray (no relation) Smith (7-2) was stopped in his prelim with New Jersey super-middle Richard Pierson (5-2). Late in the fifth, Pierson, who had floored Smith in the second, rocked him with a big right hand. Smith struggled to hang on until the bell – and made it to the five-second beatdown – but when Pierson hurt him with another right, Lee stopped the fight with two seconds left in the round.
Three-time New York Golden Gloves champion Ronney Vargas won for the second time as a pro, outpointing Bruce Burkhardt (0-3) of Marysville, Mich. (40-36 on all three cards.) This is the second time we’ve seen the Burkhardt, who has to be the gamest 0-3 fighter in captivity.
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BOARDWALK HALL
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J.
Sept. 29, 2007
MIDDLEWEIGHTS: Kelly Pavlik, 159 1/2, Youngstown, Ohio TKO’d Jermain Taylor, 159, Little Rock, Ark. (7) (Wins WBC and WBO titles)
WELTERWEIGHTS: Andre Berto, 146, Winter Haven, Fla. TKO’d David Estrada, 146 ½, Miami, Fla. (11) (Wins NABF title)
HEAVYWEIGHTS: Chazz Witherspoon, 236, Paulsboro, N.J. TKO’d Ron Guerrero, 235, Corpus Christi, Tex. (5)
Robert Hawkins, 249, Philadelphia, Pa. dec. Terry Smith, 221, Little Rock, Ark. (6)
LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHTS: Omar Sheika, 174, Paterson, N.J. TKO’d Tiwon Taylor, 172, Greensboro, N.C. (4)
SUPER MIDDDLEWEIGHTS: Richard Pierson, 166 1/2, Paterson, N.J. TKO’d Ray Smith, 168, Little Rock, Ark. (5)
JUNIOR MIDDLEWEIGHTS: : Ronald Hearns, 155, Southfield, Mich. TKO’d Robert Kamya, 154, Kampala, Uganda (1)
Carlos Quintana, 148 1/2, Moca, Puerto Rico TKO’d Christopher Henry, 148, Bridgetown, Barbados (4)
Ronney Vargas, 152, Bronx, N.Y. dec. Bruce Burkhardt, 151 1/2, Marysville, Mich. (4)
