“Great Caesars Ghost!” Undefeated world middleweight champion KELLY “The Ghost” PAVLIK returns to his old haunt — Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall — where he first captured the world title, Saturday, June 7, in his first world title defense. Pavlik faces a mandatory sentence when he rumbles with No. 1 contender and mandatory challenger GARY “The Rocket” LOCKETT, who will be making his U.S. debut..
Promoted by Top Rank, in association with Frank Warren’s Sports Network and Caesars Atlantic City, the Pavlik-Lockett world title fight will be televised live on HBO World Championship Boxing, beginning at 10:05 p.m. EDT / 7:05 p.m. PDT. Opening the broadcast will be World Boxing Organization (WBO) junior featherweight champion Daniel Ponce De Leon defending his title against undefeated No. 1 contender and mandatory challenger Juan Manuel Lopez.
Remaining tickets, priced at $300, $200, $100, and $50, can be purchased at the Boardwalk Hall box office, by calling Ticketmaster (800) 736-1420 or online at www.ticketmaster.com
JACK LOWE: He is not taking this kid lightly at all. We are not letting this kid hop across the pond and take it.
KELLY PAVLIK: This kid is coming in and I’m glad that he is yapping at the mouth again. He is going to come in there knowing what I had done to Jermain Taylor, so we are taking it very serious. Now it is not only me versus another American fighter. It is versus another country. They are saying how they beat the fighters from the US. That is one thing that we have to put a stand against. Everything in this fight is different than the Taylor fights. This is a critical fight and we have worked too hard to get this far and this is my first title defense. The word is that this kid is underrated and this isn’t going to be a good fight and I will go in there and blast him out. Well, now we have to go in there with a strong performance. Not just beat the kid, but dominate him from the opening bell. If I don’t do that then everyone will say, ‘Well, maybe Pavlik isn’t the fighter that everyone says he is.’ I have a lot to prove in this fight. Not just winning, but winning convincingly and putting on a great show.
KELLY PAVLIK: He is a straight come-forward fighter. He is a counter-puncher that keeps coming forward. I think that is awesome for my style, because I throw a lot of punches and when he sits there and tries to counter all of my punches in bunches, he will leave himself wide open. He throws a nice hook and he tries to time that jab with his right hand. But he gets hit a lot.
KELLY PAVLIK: I won’t say you have to be cautious, but you have to be aware of his wild punches. He’ll fake down low and come upstairs with a big right hand. We have brought in sparring partners that have the same type style that he has. We work on that when we hit the bags and hit the mitts. We prepare for those specific situations and mentally get ourselves ready.
KELLY PAVLIK: I don’t know if his trainer got into his head, but he got this confidence from maybe the Hopkins fight, but whatever he has got him to start running his mouth. I will benefit from that. There are only two ways to stop someone from running his mouth, with my two fists and that will happen on June 7.
KELLY PAVLIK: Jack has to chase me down for the first two weeks, but after that I am here. The first couple of weeks we usually go two or three times a week, but this time we started out at four times a week. We also go to Rocky’s (power gym) four times a week. Right now I weigh 164 ¼. I haven’t worn the fat suit yet, but it will be coming out – we are polishing it up.
KELLY PAVLIK: They are not going in the ring. You find out who your real fans and friends are when there is a tough fight and you win and they go behind your back and say you didn’t do too good. But they weren’t in training for 6 or 7 hours a day. At the same time, we don’t want to take the chance of anyone saying that so we want to go in there and win convincingly.
KELLY PAVLIK: The last two years I have probably been the most active fighter in boxing so they (Top Rank) has been keeping me busy and they do have a lot of things planned. We will probably have a few more defenses at middleweight before moving up to super middleweight.
JACK LOWE: We are giving this guy an opportunity of a lifetime. After “Slappy Joe” came over here and slapped he the hell out of Hopkins like he did all of the sudden his confidence grew and began running his mouth. It got Kelly going and he looked so good the other day that I wish the fight were this weekend. I have said before that he is getting better and better and I don’t know if we’ve seen the best yet. Someone is going to go backwards and I can’t see Lockett pushing Kelly backwards. He is going to have to adjust to what we are going to do.
KELLY PAVLIK: I have done a good job of controlling what goes through my head. This is my first title defense and we are going into this like it was the first Taylor fight. Mentally I prepare for what the outcome will be and what I have to do to get that. I put myself in every situation that I can think of. When I get done training and I sit on the couch at the end of the day, the first thing that goes through my mind is what will I have to do in this fight.
KELLY PAVLIK: I am a bad dude. I feel that every fight will be the fight that will kick-start my career and I take no one lightly. I see some fighters out there in great shape but my training is such that…it’s why I throw so many punches in a row and I wear fighters down. I am always competing against myself, even if it is a jog in the park – I have to beat the time I had last time. That is why I am so hard to beat. I am a great competitor, I train hard and I don’t let anything get to my head. Plus, I’m a BAD DUDE.
KELLY PAVLIK: Most guys wait as long as they can to fight their mandatory and will take some guy in the top 100. I want to do it right away. I fought Taylor right away without taking a tune up fight. I did it with Miranda before that. With this fight, just because Locket hasn’t fought here in the states doesn’t mean he can’t fight. Think about all the champions from the UK and Wales and Germany and Russia. His trainer is Joe Calzaghe, whose fighter is one of the top pound-for pound fighters in the world.
KELLY PAVLIK: I took this fight, which is tough for me because of the perception that it is easy. This fight will be no walk in the park for me. He is a mandatory fighter for a reason.