In today’s rendition of “big name boxers in trouble with the law”, former middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik takes center stage. Pavlik was arrested late Wednesday night after crashing an ATV into a lamp post and telephone pole near a neighbor’s property, and was brought into the station with several charges including the DUI, failure to control vehicle, and leaving the scene of an accident.
In Ohio, a DUI charge is actually an OVI, or Operating a Vehicle Under the Influence. The way it went down was that Pavlik and his friend were spotted crashing into the post and pole by the neighbor, who then called the police.
They fled the scene, and police showed up to Pavlik’s house, where the damaged ATV was parked out front, and a piece of the lamp post was in the front seat of the ATV! The friend initially tried to claim he drove the vehicle, but eventually it was determined that Pavlik did. Pavlik refused to take the on-site sobriety tests.
According to the police, Pavlik was swaying from side to side, smelled of alcohol and had slurred speech, and also was argumentative with them.
With Pavlik’s boxing career on ice, he must have wanted to get back into the news anyway that he could. Seeing the media maelstrom that was created by Mawyeather’s 90 day jail sentence earlier on Wednesday, perhaps he figured this was his one surefire chance to create some headlines.
This is just the latest episode in the apparent deterioration of Pavlik’s professional career and personal life. He’s been in and out of rehab, there have been rumors and stories about other run-ins with the law, and he dropped out of a scheduled fight on Showtime at the last minute, badly harming his reputation and taking him out of the running for big money fights against the likes of Lucian Bute or Mikkel Kessler.
It also came out that he has officially split with trainer Jack Loew, and will be working with Robert Garcia in the future. Loew said he couldn’t work with Pavlik anymore, as he had no control over the way he acted out of the ring.
Loew did wish him the best of luck, but Pavlik wasn’t quite so graceful. Pavlik said that Loew should basically thank him for making him so much money over the years, and that he ran him down like no trainer has ever done to a fighter before.
