Jason Booth is an example of being able to recover succesfully , unfortunately alcoholism is a disease that ive seen beat people on numerous occasions , both in and out sport
i suppose for all the plaudits old man Hopkins got for his win, Pavlik must have felt the total opposite. I'm sure if he got in a gym with other aspiring fighters and knuckled down he could probably make a decent comeback.
dumb, greedy career choices (hopkins at light heavy) and exceptionally talented and mobile challenger (martinez) would also have something to do with it. hopkins fight left pavlik very little choice, and martinez's style and toughness were too much to overcome. throw in weight woes, outgrowing 160 but being unwilling to get slaughtered at 168, and you have a guy without too many places to go.
i wouldnt say fame has got anything to do with it. id say losing. he'll die trying & a losses eat him up as his pride is immense as displayed in several fight's.
he's done enough in his fight career refardless of continuing im sure he'll come out of the dark tunnel.
I've always liked Pavlik. I actually believed his camp when they said he had no alcohol problems; there was a fantastic article written to support that.
Even if he fights again, he'll never match what he did before. The first Jermain Taylor fight was the pinnacle. Always a good fighter to watch, though.
I watched a lot of Pavlik around the time there were rumours of the proposed fight with John Duddy. I became a fan of his due to his 'all-out' attacking style and attitude. Even back then, there were rumours that he liked a drink but kept it on a post fight routine. He comes from a small city where everyone knows who he is and who were living his success with him and I think Kelly got caught up in this.
It is sad to see what has happened to him, there is a lot of ignorance on this thread and others towards his battle with alcoholism, clearly the people making the comments have never seen how drink can destroy a person and it's not as easy to 'give up' as it may seem.
Thankfully, Pavlik seems to have some good people around him and from the article he appears to have recognised the problem himself which is one of the hardest hurdles to get over. Hopefully with the right help and motivation he can come back from this. Best of luck to him.
hurlock wrote:i wouldnt say fame has got anything to do with it. id say losing
You say losing but i saw a qoute where his dad said it began after he won the world title off of taylor so that makes no sense.Also theres lots of rumours going around that in his home town of youngstown people have seen him around totally smashed!Going as far back as 2001/2002. I have to admit,i thought he was an overrated fighter but i hope he gets himself better.
King Geedorah wrote:Don't think it was defeat did this to him, there'd been rumours that he sloshed 99% of the time prior to his defeat and that he was finding it hard to cut down when in training for fights.
Hope the guy gets better soon.
Ray Boom Boom Mancini was insinuating stuff about his lifestyle while he was champion.
U.F.O wrote:Pavlik was never going to be that great,
he' s way to one dimensional and maybe the realisation of this pushed him over the edge.
Do one. Sure, Pavlik was never going to be the second coming of Sugar Ray Leonard but he was a great blood and guts fighter and I suspect too few of us really appreciate what it takes to get to that point, especially with his weight issues and the profile he got coming from such a disadvantaged part of the States.
I hope he manages to beat this - not as a fighter per se, but as a human being.