Martinez proves to be cut above Pavlik in middleweight title fight

ATLANTIC CITY - It was a curious pairing of the Renaissance man and the working-class hero from the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, Ohio.

Given that Boardwalk Hall was a familiar and generally favorable venue for the lunch-pail scrapper, WBC/WBO middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik, it shouldn't have come as any surprise that he went off as a 3-1 favorite Saturday night over the more cosmopolitan and artistically inclined Sergio Martinez, most recently of Oxnard, Calif., but a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, who had spent much of his professional career as a resident of one of the shining jewels of European culture, Madrid, Spain.

Martinez (45-2-2, 23 KOs) is only now, at 35, working his way into the consciousness of American fight fans, a process that should be considerably speeded up after the way he dominated down the stretch to wrest Pavlik's 160-pound championships on a 12-round unanimous decision, in the process turning "The Ghost's" milky pallor into a blood-red mask. Pavlik's busy cut man, Sid Brumback, estimated that the gash over his fighter's left eye and the deeper, more serious one under the right eye would take three dozen stitches to repair.

Cuts can heal, but certain scars - on the face and on the psyche - are apt to remain forever. A disappointingly small turnout of 6,179, most of whom were Pavlik supporters, were obliged to acknowledge the possibility that their favorite son, in recent years given the role of carrying the banner of civic pride for a steel-mill town whose factories were shuttered in the late 1970s, has the heart but maybe not the skills to again ascend to boxing's uppermost tier.

The first indication that the hard-punching Pavlik (36-2, 32 KOs) had vulnerabilities came on Oct. 18, 2008, when the then-26-year-old middleweight champion agreed to a 170-pound catchweight bout with master technician Bernard Hopkins, 17 years his senior. B-Hop's savvy and ring generalship had Pavlik lunging around the ring like a novice, and he lost a one-sided unanimous decision that raised doubts as to whether he really was a superstar in the making.

Pavlik later claimed that he had been ill leading up to the Hopkins bout, which might or might not be true, but he insisted he was again at the top of his game for the bout with Martinez, the WBC super welterweight champion.

If Pavlik's health going into the fight was not an issue, it was afterward. Ahead on two of the judges' scorecards after the eighth round, during which he sent Martinez to the canvas with a short right hand, the soon-to-be-dethroned champion was relentlessly battered and bloodied the rest of the way. Punch statistics furnished by CompuBox showed Martinez landing 34 of 63 power shots in the ninth round, and outlanding Pavlik, 112-55, in rounds 9 through 12.

Judges Roberto Ramirez, Barbara Perez and Craig Metcalfe saw Martinez winning by margins of 116-111, 115-111 and 115-112, respectively.

"When the last bell rang, I knew I was the new world champion," a jubilant Martinez said.

Before he headed off to the hospital to be sutured, Pavlik was gracious in defeat, acknowledging that blood from the cuts interfered with his vision and made him more susceptible to Martinez' southpaw flurries.

"I couldn't see out of my right eye after he cut it [in the ninth round]," Pavlik said. "He found the rhythm and smelled the blood."

Having added Pavlik's middleweight titles to the WBC 154-pound belt he already possessed, Martinez must now choose the weight class in which he will continue to reign.

Lou DiBella has been Martinez' promoter since 2007, and admits he knew next to nothing before that about the handsome Argentine who, before turning to boxing, had been a professional soccer player, processional cyclist and competitive tennis player.

"He's the best pure athlete I've ever promoted," DiBella said. "When I first saw a tape of this guy I thought, 'Where has he been? He can fight his rear end off.' "

Holding his hands low, like the young Muhammad Ali, Martinez moved with the nimbleness of a dancer, frustrating not only Pavlik, but the Pavlik supporter at ringside who for 12 rounds imploringly screamed, "Get him on the ropes, Kelly!" That fan might as well could have asked Pavlik - who, in fairness, did have his moments in the middle rounds - to bottle moonbeams. *