Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.
Miguel Espino said he believes Kelly Pavlik "thinks I'm a pushover," adding, "He turns down a fight with Paul Williams on Dec. 5 to fight me on Dec. 19? That doesn't make any sense."
Also, Espino's trainer John Bray tells us what workout partners at Los Angeles' Fortune Gym say the fighter's punching power does to their dental features.
LAS VEGAS -- When former world champion Winky Wright enters the ring in San Juan's Coliseo de Puerto Rico on Dec. 11, it will be with the short-range goals of acheiving past glory.
Wright (51-5-1, 25 knockouts), a southpaw who turns 38 on Nov. 26, will end an eight-month layoff when he meets Brewer, who will turn 39 on Dec. 22. Brewer (26-11, 15 KOs) has won eight consecutive fights, inlcluding first- and, second-round knockouts of his past two opponents in May and August.
Wright twice defeated current world champion, Shane Mosley, as a junior middleweight (154 pounds) in 2004, and then followed that up with a rise to middleweight (160) for a one-sided, May, 2005, unanimous decision over former world champion and Puerto Rican great, Felix Trinidad.
WBO and WBC middleweight champion Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik will fight Miguel Espino on Dec. 19 at in his hometown of Youngstown, Ohio, his promoter, Top Rank president Bob Arum, confirmed on Monday. Pavlik has apparently healed from a staph infection that twice prompted him to cancel scheduled title bouts against three-time champion Paul "The Punisher" Williams.
Arum said that Pavlik will face Espino as the main event of a Top Rank pay-per-view card entitled, "Latin Fury."
Paul Williams will be ending a nearly nine-month layoff when he enters the ring on Dec. 5 against Sergio Martinez, which he calls "a good thing."
Williams (37-1, 27 knockouts) will face Martinez (44-1-2, 24 KOs) in Atlantic City, on the same night he was supposed to challenge WBO and WBC middleweight (160 pounds) champion Kelly Pavlik (35-1, 31 KOs), before the titlist canceled their bout due to a staph infection on the knuckle of his left forefinger.
"I've got to focus on this guy now. It's a little bit of an adjustment, but it's nothing that a champion can't do," said Williams, an Aiken, S.C., native now living in Augusta, Ga.
"At this point in my career, a win is a win. But any time you get in there, you want to make a statement," said Williams. "And I'm going to make a statement. I'm going to go in there and do what I do."
Former world champion Winky Wright will return from an eight-month layoff when he enters the ring against Grady Brewer on Dec. 11 at the Coliseo de Puerto Rico in San Juan.
A southpaw who will turn 38 on Nov. 26, Wright is coming off of consecutive losses by decision to Bernard Hopkins and Paul Williams in July 2007 and this past April, respectively.
Wright (51-5-1, 25 knockouts) owns victories over former world champs Shane Mosley and Felix Trinidad, and fought to a disputed draw with former undisputed middleweight (160 pounds) champion Jermain Taylor.
Paul Williams is pursuing a fight with either WBO junior middleweight champion Sergiy Dzinziruk or Sergio Martinez on Dec. 5 in Atlantic City now that his scheduled bout for the same night, against Kelly Pavlik, has been canceled, his promoter, Dan Goossen, and his trainer and manager, George Peterson, told FanHouse.
Pavlik (35-1, 31 KOs) has a staph infection in his left finger that has plagued him for months, having led to the second postponement of his WBO and WBC middleweight title defenses against Williams (37-1, 27 KOs), a two-time welterweight and one-time junior middleweight champion.
Mark Taffet, Senior Vice President of HBO Sports Pay Per View, said Floyd Mayweather "clearly has proven his star status by generating the kinds of pay per view numbers that very few men in the history of the sport have ever generated."
FanHouse spoke to Taffet, the man in charge of HBO's Pay Per View, as he addressed Mayweather, the Nov. 14 megafight between Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto, the cable giant's "hunger to go younger" initiative geared toward drawing America's youth to the sport of boxing, and how the organization determines which fights are deserving of pay television status during this exclusive interview.
Kelly Pavlik hopes to draw another huge crowd from his hometown Dec. 5, when he defends his WBC and WBO middleweight belts against Paul Williams at Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall.
In this final installment of a three-part series, Pavlik told FanHouse about his supportive fans, and how he looks forward to the first day of an eight-week "boot camp" for Williams.
For the third defense of his WBC and WBO middleweight titles, Kelly Pavlik will return to Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall to face former two-time welterweight and one-time junior middleweight champion Paul Williams on Dec. 5.
In this second installment of a three-part series, Pavlik spoke to FanHouse about Bernard Hopkins, who beat him last fall in Atlantic City, his relationship with trainer Jack Loew, his unusual training regimen and the origin of his nickname, "The Ghost."
It was Sept. 29, 2007, and there were many within the boisterous crowd of 10,127 who packed into Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall who wondered if their hometown hero, Kelly Pavlik, would go down in the first defeat of his career.
Pavlik estimated that close to 8,000 of his faithful had traveled from his native Youngstown, Ohio, to support him. Pavlik could hear them as they screamed encouragement, even as he woozily sank to his stool, having been blasted to the canvas by nearly 20 unanswered punches from Jermain Taylor.
"Are you OK? Can you continue?" asked cornerman Jack Loew, Pavlik's trainer since he first laced up the gloves at age 9.