If They Ever Fight, Kelly Pavlik Will Punish "The Punisher"

Colin LinneweberOct 28, 2009

WBC and WBO middleweight champion Kelly “The Ghost” Pavlik canceled his scheduled bout with Paul “The Punisher” Williams yet again last week because his left hand still has not healed from the effects of a stubborn staph infection he developed earlier in the year.

The staph infection reportedly surfaced after Pavlik (35-1, 31 KOs) defeated Marco Antonio Rubio (43-5-1, 37 KOs) last February in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio.

Pavlik, 27, was prescribed antibiotics to ward off the infection and he was eventually forced to undergo two surgeries on his hand as a last resort after the medicine he took proved to be ineffective.

Pavlik and Williams (37-1, 27 KOs), who had initially planned to fight on Oct. 3, had rescheduled their matchup for Dec. 5 in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Pavlik said he felt obligated to fight Williams, 28, because he had already once postponed the fight and many medical professionals told him that he would be fully recovered by the time the matchup was intended to occur.

“Since I started training, it was in my mind the whole time,” Pavlik said. “It feels stiff, I ain’t able to hit anything. There was just no way to do it.”

Todd DuBoef, Pavlik’s promoter and President of Top Rank, said his fighter’s recovery has “not progressed as projected by Dr. Peter Evans at the Cleveland Clinic. Once Pavlik is cleared medically by Dr. Evans, we will pursue all avenues with regards to a future bout.”

Williams’ brash trainer, George Peterson, questioned Pavlik’s injury and his genuine desire to box his fighter.

“If he had a staph infection for this long, he would have been poisoned to death,” said Peterson, who never earned a medical degree. “It’s not the hand that needs to be corrected. His heart is what needs to be corrected. They keep treating the wrong thing. We are not waiting on this guy anymore.”

Pavlik’s father said that his son was ill when he suffered his first loss as a professional to 43-year-old Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs) last October and they learned a valuable lesson from that contest.

“We learned our lesson once already when he went into a fight not feeling well,” Mike Pavlik said. “And we vowed we wouldn’t do it again.”

The unorthodox and extremely lanky Williams has long been referred to as the most “avoided fighter in the world.”

Despite Peterson’s unfounded and ignorant claims, Pavlik does have a tremendous heart and he is absolutely not avoiding Williams.

“I want to fight, and people question because I’ve been inactive, but there’s goals I want to accomplish,” Pavlik said. “It does feel like wasted time, where I could be out accomplishing a lot. And one big fight could sum up that big accomplishment.”

Perhaps Williams and his handlers will cease “waiting on this guy (Pavlik) anymore.”

However, if Williams is actually determined to defeat Pavlik, they will battle each other at some point in the future.

Pavlik would have violently dismantled Williams without any extra motivation.

Now, thanks to Williams’ mouthy trainer, Pavlik has an extra incentive to punish the man hailed as “The Punisher.”

Paul Williams will simply become a “ghost” if Kelly Pavlik is ever able to get his hands on him.