By Jim Dower: Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KOs) rebounded well from his defeat in his last fight, taking out challenger Marco Antonio Rubio (43-5-1, 37 KOs) in the 9th round on Saturday night. The fight, which was fought in Pavlik’s hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, was never competitive in the least, as Pavlik methodically dismantled a badly overmatched Rubio round by round until finally Rubio quit after the 9th round while on his stool. Rubio looked poor, not throwing punches and doing little to try and fight back. All I can say is the WBC middleweight division must be the worst in all boxing because Rubio didn’t look like he belonged in the ring with Pavlik, nor any other champion.
Before long, the fight was hopelessly one-sided with Pavlik hammering Rubio right hands.
Pavlik landed a thudding right hand in the 8th that hurt Rubio and had him ready to go while he was on the ropes. Pavlik, however, wasn’t able to finish him off with the right shot. In the 9th, Pavlik stalked Rubio around the ring landing big right hands to the head and nice jabs.
After the round ended, Rubio quit on his stool. He had no chance of winning by a decision because he had lost every round of the fight, and he had little to no chance of knocking Pavlik out, because it was Pavlik that was doing most of the punching. Rubio could punch when he wanted to, but he seemed overly afraid to let his hands go with any kind of regularity.
Rubio wasted most of the first six rounds fighting on the move and not actually fighting Pavlik. I could see that he was trying a poor imitation of Bernard Hopkins’ style of fighting, but Hopkins would stop moving every once in awhile and light Pavlik up with some hard combinations and then get moving again.
With Rubio, he just moved and would only commit to one punch at a time when he was throwing. The lack of offense from Rubio made it easy for Pavlik to do what he wanted to do. For all the talk about Pavlik showing a new look and trying to box more than he did in the past, he looked about the same as ever.
He walked Rubio down in that same Pavlik style plodding manner, and then when he would close in on him he’d land the old double jab and right. There was no mystery about, because he did pretty much the same thing each time he’d attack. The difference was that Rubio had none of Hopkins’ boxing skills and was essentially over his head against him.
Rubio took a lot of punishment through the first five rounds without trying to fight back. He landed a few good shots in the 5th but that was more the exception rather than the rule.
Pavlik paid him back for the handful of punches that Rubio had landed the previous round by nailing him with some really hard shots in the 6th. Rubio tried fighting Pavlik in the 7th, stropping and throwing a few right hands. When I say few, that’s what I mean, a few. Rubio looked terrified of Pavlik and confused as what to do.
He seemed torn with what he knew he needed to do and the sense that if he did it he’d be knocked out quickly. Either way, he would lose but at least in trying to fight back he would have had a chance as small as it was. Rubio stayed on the ropes in the 8th, I suppose trying to fight it out with Pavlik. Seemed like a bad place to be, especially for someone who didn’t have the ability to get out of the way of Pavlik’s big shots.
As you would guess, Rubio would soon be nailed with a big right hand from Pavlik and badly hurt. Pavlik went after him hard but was unable to take him out. In the 9th, Pavlik continued slowly beating Rubio down. Though he was unable to put Rubio down, he landed some withering shots to the head of Rubio.
The punches, perhaps, helped convince Rubio that it was best that he not come out of the 10th round. As such, he quit on his stool after the 9th round.
Comments are closed.