I can't remember the last time I was interested in boxing enough to make a plan or pay to watch a fight. It was probably back around the Tyson Ear Eating Era. Even then it was more about watching a trainwreck. I seldom had an rooting interest in a particular boxer.
That being said I really do enjoy Kelly Pavlik. I and I genuinley root for him. I am sure it mostly due to geography. I/we don't consider Youngstown really being part of Cleveland untill it's convenient, i.e. Tressel, Springsteen's song, now Pavlik).
It's easy to love this guy:
Wearing the Buckeye shorts.
He's from a small blue collar town.
Skinny white guy.
He sleeps on his parents tiny couch in thier tiny house before the fight.
And he's a true Cleveland Fan.
The fact that he is about as tall as Pucky, and weighs slightly more than me is stunning.
I think one of my favorite things about him is that he is one of us, in the sense of being a Cleveland Sports Fan. Seeing him throw out the first pitch at the tribe game, the toin coss (Inside Madden joke from 1995) at the Browns game was pretty cool. But interviews after showed he is a true fan of these teams and these athletes, just like us. He has grown up with the same sports heartache's as us, and he is from a town that gets no respect.
In that way it makes him more like me than Lebron is. It's that, that I enjoy about Pavlik, and that, that bugs me about Lebron.
