If you don’t know who Kelly Pavlik is your either not a boxing fan (highly likely in our era) or your not from Ohio where Pavlik has a cultlike following especially in his native Youngstown in Northeast Ohio where he is from and has remained. His surprising rise to boxing greatness is only slightly more surprising than his ability to remain grounded and humble while remaining in Youngstown (living at his parents house during training). Last night Pavlik rematched with Jermain Taylor who last September he took the middleweight title from.
This time no belt was on the line as they fought up a weight level. The fight went the distance unlike last time but while Pavlik didn’t win in the decesive fashion of the first he still won in a unanimous decision. At least for Ohio it seems boxing is on the return as it seems likely that a match will be held in either Youngstown or Cleveland in one of his upcoming matches and this is just the ticket for rust belt cities to get something to be proud about.
While not tons of Central Ohio bars bother with PPV events once you found a place that was showing it (I went up to watch at Gallo’s Tap Room on Bethel) you would likely found a packed house decked out in Ohio gear, be it OSU or Youngstown State gear (Pavlik wore Youngstown ‘Y’ adorned trunks in this fight, having worn Scarlet&Grey ones in the first fight). The crowd was of course entirely behind Pavlik and the bar errupted when the decision was announced. See more on Pavlik and the fight here in the Youngstown Vindicator.
It’s clear that Ohio’s greatest product for export is boxers that can defeat Jermaine Taylor, but what about culture….what about opera houses? Until Cleveland and the cities of the rust belt begin to produce grand opera houses, you will remain an uncultured swine.
Love,
Jeremy