Jack Loew is wrapping up Kelly Pavlik’s training camp in Youngstown as they prepare to hit Vegas for Pavlik’s first fight since April of last year. Both men have endured their share of negative comments during this time. When you look at how other fighters have been treated following a loss or two, it’s hard not to be a little taken aback at some of the remarks being thrown around about Team Pavlik.
In today’s temperamental age of boxing where superstardom can be fleeting, boxers are accustomed to receiving criticism. However, Loew has been forced to endure the unusual practice of the criticism being turned towards him and his hometown. He sat down to discuss Pavlik’s career and some of these issues in this exclusive interview.
Proboxing-fans.com: We assume Kelly fighting at 168 will have given you more time to focus on boxing without the weight-making issues hanging over your head like a vulture. Has that been the case in this camp?
Jack Loew: Oh yeah, you know what—a whole lot more energy, a lot more time focusing on boxing. It’s not worrying about leaving the gym early so we can get down to the “Y” to get a good sweat, the leave the “Y” and go somewhere else and get another sweat. So, it’s been all boxing. He can finally train like a regular boxer now.
Everyone’s bracing for Kelly to make a go of it at 168. Are we overlooking the possibility that Kelly might need to go to light heavy before long?
Jack Loew: Oh, without a doubt. I see that in the not-to-far future, you know? I actually told him to bypass ‘68 and go to ‘75—that was my opinion. He says he can make ‘68 with no problem right now and it has gone really well. He’s made it good. A nutritionist from Florida has been working with us part-time and it’s really helped out a lot. But yeah, I see ’75 in the future.
Does it worry you that everyone is looking at Saturday as an easy fight for Kelly, being that he’s facing an undefeated guy with a lot of KOs who has the opportunity of a lifetime in front of him? Does that concern you?
Jack Loew: No, they could be looking at it that way, but I assure you—we’ve trained very hard for this kid. We cut no corners. We actually got in more boxing for this fight than in our last couple fights, for a few different reasons. He’s getting rid of a lot of ring rust and he’s been out of the ring for 13 months. So we did a whole lot of boxing for this and we are definitely not overlooking this kid, so it doesn’t matter what the people think.
——> Read an exclusive interview with Kelly Pavlik here!
Do you ever look at other top fighters, some with more losses than Kelly, and wonder why they don’t catch as much flack for their setbacks as Kelly seems to catch for his 2 losses?
Jack Loew: Yeah I do. I think it’s very unfair how Kelly coming off two of his losses to guys like Bernard Hopkins and Sergio Martinez, while other fighters have a lot more losses than us and they don’t catch what we catch. They do the same thing with me. If you look at Andre Berto, he’s been with his trainer since his amateur days. He lost a fight and nobody said Berto’s done, or can only fight one way, and needs to get rid of his trainer. Juan Manuel Lopez lost and no one said he needs to get rid of his trainer. They didn’t tell him his career was done. All they told him was to change camps, to go from Puerto Rico to Florida.
For some reason, whatever happens to Kelly in the ring, they brutalize both of us. They say Kelly can only fight one way, he’s gotta get rid of Jack Loew—he can’t teach him anymore. I mean…we catch it all the time. I guess we put ourselves in that scenario by being on top and everything and you gotta have thick skin to let it all roll off. But the way I look at it, we’re the only two that get it like that.
Why do you think it is in the old days that top fighters ( I know they fought a bunch more times) could lose and no one would really bat an eyelash compared to today where it’s like the end of the world sometimes when a top guy takes a loss?
Jack Loew: I don’t know! But I mean, look at Paul Williams. I mean, he’s coming off a BRUTAL knockout and nobody said a damn thing about it! All he did was get knocked out and they didn’t say anything bad about Paul Williams and he hasn’t looked good in his last few fights.
Going back to Kelly, we keep taking heat for the losses. Everyone else, it’s OK, they just move on. Nothing about changing trainers, just move camp from Puerto Rico to Florida. Why don’t we get that? And why can’t guys take losses like they used to—I don’t know. Like you said, guys would let a loss roll off their shoulder and fight again in a month to redeem that loss. It’s like football. No one is gonna win all of ‘em. Nobody is.
If Floyd Mayweather would have continued to fight, no way he stays undefeated. The way he picks and chooses—maybe, and as little as he fights right now. I’m a fan of him, don’t get me wrong. But you can only stay undefeated when you’re doing what he’s doing right now.
On one hand, there’s this demand on the part of fans and media to fight the toughest guys and then at the same time, there’s a zero-tolerance policy on losing. You can’t have both, right?
Jack Loew: Yeah, they make them fight, then rip into ‘em. The loser catches the hell. The media controls a lot of it. TV controls it. But if you want to fight for the money, you kinda gotta listen to what they say. You gotta go in with HBO—they put together the matches and they want good matches. And they have had some good matches.
And again, when we go back to what we were talking about with Kelly and myself, I mean, the other guys still don’t catch all the heat. Someone’s gotta lose every fight. There’s a winner and a loser, and if the “A-side” loses, like, I haven’t heard one bad thing about Juan Manuel Lopez. Not one bad thing. Just that he lost a fight.
You accomplished the ultimate measure of success for a trainer by taking a kid from scratch and taking him to the middleweight title, not to mention your other credentials. Then after two losses to great fighters, you start to hear a lot of people saying some negative things. What do you say to those people who use those 2 losses as fodder for calling your expertise into question?
Jack Loew: Well, you know what? They try to tell me a lot of things, like Kelly fights one-dimensional. I mean, I wish some of these people would go back and look at the second Jermain Taylor fight. We totally outboxed Jermain Taylor for 12 rounds. We switched our game plan. We hurt Jermain early and didn’t knock him out, so we went into boxing mode. We out-jabbed him, I mean, we just outboxed him. And they say we only train one way.
I also train other fighters too, not just Kelly Pavlik. I train Dannie Williams. He’s 17-1 with 14 knockouts and he’s a beautiful young boxer. I got 3, 4 national champions. I can’t help when Kelly goes in there and knows he can knock a guy out and he goes to war. That’s how he fights.
It’s like Arturo Gatti. When they put Arturo Gatti with Buddy McGirt, they said “oh, Buddy’s gonna change him into a boxer.” Bullshit. He’s not changing Arturo Gatti into no goddamn boxer. He’s gonna get hit one time on the chin and he’s gonna go to war! I can tell Kelly to go out there and jab, jab, jab, and box and move around the ring and do this and that, but Kelly is the one who goes in there. If he wants to fuckin’ fight, he’s gonna fight. And that’s all there is to it.
Does it make you and Kelly happy to see Marco Antonio Rubio get a big win by beating David Lemieux? I remember people giving you guys a lot of negative feedback about fighting Rubio? Now he’s probably going to get another shot.
Jack Loew: Yeah, the kid hasn’t lost since we beat him. I was glad as hell. We both called it. I told him “wait till the later rounds.” Lemieux was just bombing away at him, trying way too hard. And his inexperience showed, they rushed this young kid. And Kelly will tell you: Rubio has a little pop. He came out to fight Kelly, he was maybe thinking Kelly didn’t have that much power. But once Kelly touched him real hard one time, then he kinda started moving on us. But Rubio’s got a little pop. That Lemieux is a nice fighter and I’m glad for Rubio—he deserves a shot. He’s fought everybody they’ve asked him to fight.
You see Lucian Bute in a real high-profile position now and look at his record. You see the same caliber of guys Kelly was fighting on the way up: he even defended his title against two of the same guys Kelly beat before he won the belt. The guy obviously has a lot of talent. But do ever think why’s he getting so much good stuff said and written about him? I mean he’s a great fighter, but who’d he really beat?
Jack Loew: No, you’re right—he hasn’t really beaten anybody. I think after Kelly fought Miranda, we ruined Miranda. That’s another thing. The night we beat Miranda, yes we were “Godzilla” and everything. Then all of a sudden after we beat Miranda, they say “well he’s not that good of a fighter. He was right in front of Pavlik”
But then, Bute turns around and stops Miranda with a body shot or whatever, and all of a sudden he’s God. “Wow, what a stoppage over Miranda!” We ruined the kid and then Bute beat him and Andre Ward and a couple other guys beat him AFTER we ruined this kid.
You know, Bute is a good fighter. He’s got a great fan base up there. He’s very popular. And besides Kelly’s drawing power, he’s the only super middleweight out there that can put those kind of people in the stands. That’s why I think, really, the only mega-fight out there would be Kelly and Bute eventually. They’re the only two who could jam a stadium.
Is there a top guy out there who for whatever reason, you think would be just the perfect style matchup for Kelly where you’re thinking, “let’s get that guy”?
Jack Loew: There’s a lot of ‘em. I like Arthur Abraham and would love to fight him even though he’s lost a some of his luster. I always wanted that fight. I’d love to fight Arthur Abraham. I think Carl Froch and Kelly makes a great fight. I think Kessler and Kelly makes a great fight. In those fights, somebody’s gonna go. Those would be really interesting fights I think.
I don’t know, Andre Ward-Kelly Pavlik could be a stinker fight maybe. I think Andre Ward is a great young fighter—he’s got all the talent in the world. I don’t know what kind of fight that could be for the fans. Andre Dirrell runs a lot, so I just don’t know what kind of fights those would be. But for interesting fights: Froch, Abraham, Kessler, Bute—those would be some nice fights.
Carl Froch made some disparaging statements about Kelly. What did you think of that?
Jack Loew: Yeah. Carl Froch always shoots his mouth off. I mean, that’s what I like about him—he’s a nice draw over there and he’s starting to come over to America. I mean, listen—Jermain Taylor was BEATING HIS ASS until he got caught, which was stupid on Jermain’s part. He was beating his ass, he outboxed him. If Jermain can outbox him, we can outbox him and then knock him out. But I think it would be a very interesting fight. I heard Froch is gonna be ringside Saturday for the fights.
The only real measuring stick that exists between the two is Jermain Taylor, who Kelly handled better. So does it surprise you that he would single Kelly out and say things like he’s not on the same level?
Jack Loew: Nah, it doesn’t surprise me. He talks a lot of stuff. Who knows, maybe he just wants to talk up a fight with Kelly down the road. But to say Kelly’s not on his level, that’s just absurd.
The Internet has helped boxing in terms of exposure and some other stuff, but what’s the one thing about the Internet that bugs you as it pertains to boxing?
Jack Loew: The only thing, and I shouldn’t say it bothers me because I don’t read them anymore, is the blogs. You get these armchair quarterbacks on there and they just rip people apart. They rip fighters apart and they rip their families apart and they say such rude and cruel things.
These are probably people, fat-asses who sit on their couch eating potato chips and playing on their computer all day because they have nothing better to do in their life—never played a sport in their life. They just downgrade people. These are the same people who said after Peyton Manning lost the Super Bowl that he should quit, he’s no good, he’s done, and he’s washed up. C’mon, you know?
And these are the same guys talking about Kelly and myself and everybody else. Like I said, it hurts my family, my wife, more than it hurts me because I don’t pay attention to that. When the professionals that are writers say bad things about me, well, sorry they feel that way and maybe they’re right and maybe I’ll look into things. But as far as these people on these blogs, you know, they have too much free power out there and say some really cruel things. Even when Arum’s son went missing and they found him dead, some of the cruel things they put up there, it’s just ridiculous.
Fans and media can be fickle and unfair to a lot of different fighters. But even knowing that going in, do you think the media and maybe even some fans have gone overboard in their criticism of Kelly during the last couple years?
Jack Loew: Yeah, they have. This is a small town and just because he went to rehab doesn’t mean all the rumors that proceeded that were true. The stuff Kelly was doing and the things that were going on in his life, if he lived in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Las Vegas, you would have never heard anything about it. There are two superstars in Ohio: Lebron James and he’s gone and Kelly Pavlik, so we’re the only one left. And he’s catching everything, no matter what happens, and it gets blown out of proportion.
I’m not saying what he was doing is correct, don’t get me wrong. But there were so many stories that got blown out of proportion—so many stories that went from A to Z and skipped everything in between. It’s outrageous the way people were talking about this kid. Things like that.
For every one Jack Loew, there’s a thousand guys in gyms, guys who’ve trained fighters for the love of it for years without ever seeing any windfall. How much personal satisfaction does it give you to have been able to take something you love and make it a viable career? Do you ever take time to reflect on that?
Jack Loew: Oh yeah, I think about that everyday, you know? I had a lot of successful friends in athletics. Bobby Stoops at Oklahoma, we’re good friends and we graduated together. Just seeing what they were doing—going to work and doing something everyday that you love and make good money at it. I love boxing. I love teaching kids. I love working with kids.
And the biggest accomplishment I think was bringing Kelly from 9 years old and not getting pulled apart from all the so-called experts, and we made it to the top. That was probably the best thing that could have ever happened instead of taking a guy that’s a real good fighter and two fights later taking him to a world title. Don’t get me wrong I would love to (laughs), but there’s just a whole lot more satisfaction the way Kelly and I did it.
The Jermain Taylor fight couldn’t have been more of a movie script and things have been great. Like I said, I’ve worked hard at it, though, and I was one of the lucky ones—I ain’t gonna lie. There were ten other gyms in this town and Kelly walked in my door. We worked hard at it and it’s the greatest feeling in the world, man.
Also, Kelly and I are promoting out first fight together, Ghost Promotions, and we’re doing our first fight out here on July 1. We’re gonna have Dannie Williams as our headliner. He’s gonna defend his WBC Continental Americas Title, so we look forward to that too.
