by James Slater – A few days ago, when the hugely intriguing Kelly Pavlik-Paul Williams fight was announced as happening on October 3rd, fans everywhere rejoiced. A great fight on paper, Pavlik-Williams is just the kind of fight boxing needs today. However, in announcing the fight and the subsequent press conference that would make the fight a go, the promoters jumped the gun. Depressingly, as fans now know, Pavlik and his team said they would not be attending any press conference because the middleweight king would not be in any shape to fight Williams on October 3rd due to a serious problem with the middle finger of his left hand..
Hoping to save the fight all of boxing wants to see take place, a later date, of either November or even December, was put forth. Even more recently, though, Williams’ team have made it clear they do not want to have “The Punisher” wait around for a fight that long. Not having fought since his dominant points win over Winky Wright back in April, the welterweight and light-middleweight titlist is concerned about staying on the shelf too long. And this is where we are now; left in the dark about whether or not this potential super-fight will actually happen after all.
No-one’s blaming anyone. Pavlik’s finger injury is as serious as it is 100-percnt genuine. And after what happened to him when he went ahead when less than 100-percent in his fight with Bernard Hopkins last October, no way should anyone expect “The Ghost” to risk doing the same thing against Williams. Jack Loew, when speaking to The Youngstown Vindicator, spoke briefly about the injury his fighter has.
“It turned my stomach,” Loew said. “There’s a hole in it (Kelly’s left hand).”
It’s clear then, that this fight is not being postponed (or, God forbid, even cancelled for good) due to one half of the match-up getting cold feet and using stalling tactics. Pavlik’s injury is legit, simple as that. What has annoyed fans, though , is just why they had the fight dangled in front of them by the promoters, when they should have known all along that Pavlik would be in no shape to fight on the October date they were publicising.
The outlook now is pretty grim, it must be said. If Williams does not want to wait around until November or December to fight Pavlik, and instead opts to take a fight with someone else so as to keep active and sharp (possible opponents mentioned are Sergio Martinez, Sergiy Dzinziruk and, according to some rumours, Bernard Hopkins!), then that’s his call. Williams wants to fight, Pavlik can’t fight – at least not right now – and that’s the bottom line.
Again, neither fighter is at fault; but that’s no conciliation to the fans. Indeed, some fans are already saying they felt all along the Pavlik-Williams fight was too good to be true. Let’s hope this line of thinking is not borne out.