By scalzo

February 15, 2008

After spending a few hours this afternoon hanging out with Kelly Pavlik and his trainer, Jack Loew, I can’t even begin to tell you how lucky I am to be covering the Pavlik camp instead of Jermain Taylor. It would be difficult to be more accommodating than Loew and Pavlik, who let me and Vindicator photographer Bill Lewis wander around his hotel room. Jermain Taylor rarely lets reporters into his workouts, much less his hotel room.

If you’ve never met Loew, you’re missing out. The man is a treat. First of all, there’s almost no filter between his brain and his mouth. In a 30-minute interview session with about eight reporters this afternoon, he managed to rip on Emanuel Steward (who refused to shake Loew’s hand after the September bout), poke fun of Pavlik for buying a $400 watch instead of a $1,000 one, praise mixed martial arts (a rarity for boxing fans, who view MMA the same way union workers view NAFTA) and all but guarantee victory on Saturday. (“We waited seven years,” Loew said. “We’re finally here and it’s not going to be taken away from us.”)

Jermain Taylor’s trainer, Ozell Nelson, also met with reporters and was almost as interesting. Nelson and Loew are a lot alike — good, hard-working guys who are easy to like. When it comes to fighter interviews, however, there’s no comparison. Taylor rarely says anything interesting, while Pavlik likes to joke around and gives much more interesting answers.

I’ve spent most of my day writing, so I haven’t had much time to tour the city, which is a shame since this is my first time here. One thing that strikes you immediately is the cigarette smoke. Because of Ohio’s smoking ban, it seems strange to see people smoking indoors. There’s also something strangely depressing about watching people play slot machines at 12:30 in the afternoon.

One of the things you learn about Vegas very quickly is that whatever your concept of money is, it’s wrong. I’ve been to Europe twice and Vegas is sort of like Europe in that everything is overpriced, yet everyone acts as though it’s not. (For instance, you often have to pay to use the restroom in Europe, even at places like McDonald’s. And you have to pay if you want ketchup. And you have to pay if you want a bag for your groceries. And no one thinks this is strange. If any of these things happened in America, there’d be protests in the streets about how stores are trying to steal our civil liberties.)

Back to Vegas. I ate dinner at the Grand Buffet tonight and it cost $28, which I would consider a positively ridiculous amount to pay for a buffet dinner, even if it was terrific (and it was). But this didn’t stop anyone. There was a 15-minute wait to get a table. I suppose if you’re the type of person who can bet $100 on a hand of blackjack, you’re probably not sweating $28 on a buffet dinner. But I did. And I’m not even paying for it — my company is. Like I said, the buffet was terrific. I tried my best, but I’m not sure I got my money’s worth. I did make sure to get something from the four food groups: beef (steak), pork (in a soft taco), chicken (fried) and turkey. I also ate strawberries the size of volleyballs along with fresh pineapple. There are worse meals to eat.

Afterward, I took a ride around the city on the Monorail, mainly so I could get out of the casino. The MGM Grand is designed to make it unnecessary to leave the building, particularly if there is still money in your wallet. It has shops, a food court, gambling (of course), entertainment (you can see the Cirque de Soleil, if you’re the type of person who doesn’t value $70) and, of course, hotel rooms.

It was my first trip on a monorail (outside of Cedar Point), and I learned two interesting statistics about the city: 86 percent of its visitors gamble, and each person gambles an average of $625. I also learned that the word “monorail” is made up of two Latin words: mono (one) and rail (rail). The irreplaceable Phil Hartman played a crooked monorail conductor in a classic Simpsons episode from Season Four (written by Conan O’Brien) and he actually teaches that Latin lesson. I always thought it was fake.

If you’ve never seen that episode, drop what you’re doing and go buy Season Four of The Simpsons, even if the store is closed and you have to break in and leave money on the register. It’s the greatest season of TV ever made.

I put down $10 on a sporting event at the MGM Sports Book. This is $10 more than I gambled in Atlantic City for the last Pavlik fight and I can say with an awful lot of certainty that I’ll end up about $615 short of the average person.

I’ll have at least one more blog tomorrow and several on fight night, although probably not this long.

We’ll also have a live update from the weigh-in (which is at 5:30 EST) and round-by-round updates Saturday night. And, of course, there are plenty of Pavlik stories, photos and videos on Vindy.com.