Next week's event confirms: Pavlik is back

YOUNGSTOWN — For the last six months, whenever Jack Loew steps into a barber shop, a grocery store, a restaurant or any other public place, he’s heard the same questions.

“How’s Kelly? When’s he fighting? Hasn’t he been off a long time? How’s his hand?” said Loew, Kelly Pavlik’s trainer. “Everywhere I go, I hear it.”

For the first time in months, he finally has some good answers.

Pavlik and Loew will join opponent Paul Williams in New Jersey on Tuesday for a pre-fight press conference at the New York Giants’ practice facility in East Rutherford, N.J.

The session is obviously being held to drum up publicity for their Dec. 5 fight in Atlantic City, but it also serves as confirmation that, after seven months out of the ring, Pavlik is back.