Pavlik, Taylor set for rematch

LAS VEGAS -- Kelly Pavlik and Jermain Taylor both weighed in at 164 pounds Friday at the MGM Grand Garden in the anticlimactic final step before the rematch of their exciting middleweight title bout.

Pavlik knocked out Taylor four months ago to claim the WBC belt, and both agreed to fight the rematch at a 166-pound catch weight with no title on the line.

Both claimed the extra weight would help them, as both have labored to make the middleweight division's 160-pound limit in the past. They had no such problems this week, with Pavlik even making a trip to the MGM Grand's buffet -- though he ate only healthy food, he claimed.

In front of a lively crowd featuring fans of both fighters, Taylor took the stage to chants of "J.T." and "Woo, pig! Sooie!" -- the historic hog call of the University of Arkansas. Two fans waved a Razorbacks flag a few rows above his wife, Erica.

"You better believe this time here, it's going to be a totally different fight," Taylor said. "I get him down this time, he's going to stay down."

Pavlik was knocked down in the second round of their first fight but recovered and eventually stopped Taylor in the seventh round in Atlantic City. Instead of taking a tuneup fight to recover from the first loss of his career, Taylor immediately exercised the rematch clause in his contract.

Pavlik, who's known as "The Ghost," didn't have to say much to incite the hundreds of fans wearing T-shirts with his likeness and holding up hand puppets shaped like ghosts. Pavlik's camp expects thousands of fans from his native Youngstown, Ohio, to join the West Coast's Ohio expatriates at the fight.

When Pavlik got the microphone, he simply rapped his fist against it repeatedly, then said, "Youngstown!"