Kelly Pavlik: Back to Busy Schedule With Gym, Boxing App

Kelly Pavlik of Boardman, former world champion middleweight boxer and now a principal in several sports-related enterprises, is coming back strong. You can read more about Kelly at the Mi Gym Fitness Center website.

What are you doing these days now that you’re not boxing?

Quite a few things. We have the gym, Mi Gym Fitness Center, in Columbiana. We also have GST, Ghost Sports Testing, for doing combine-like events throughout the country for young athletes in several sports.

We still have the boxing and fitness app, Sweet Science+, along with my partner, Billy Lyell [also a retired boxer]. There are boxing tutorials from me and a lot of good fitness and nutrition information.

I had the podcast, The Punchline, with James Dominguez, but we put that on hold when the pandemic started. And there’s the [Kelly Pavlik] Charitable Organization. I’ve been involved with promoting fights, and that’s been on hold, too.

What are some ways the COVID-19 outbreak has affected your work, and how are you rebounding?

Mi Gym was shut down and I wasn’t going to charge people when they weren’t able to come in. So, it was tough for a while. But we were fortunate that when we opened back up, we got bombarded with people coming back, even with new members. That was surprising because usually summertime is down. We bounced back fairly well. It’s nice to be rebounding.

We also had a series of fights planned for April and had to call those off because of the virus.

We’ve had a good response on the app without doing much promotion. We just started in September, so we’ve not been out quite a year yet. We’re looking to make a bigger push on the app in October.

How has the outbreak affected your personal life?

At first, it was actually pretty nice because I wasn’t on the go so much. Instead of being so busy taking care of things, I had absolutely nothing to do. After about two weeks of the quarantine, though, it really started catching up. The kids were bouncing off the walls. It got hard towards the end. But it was all good. 

The kids were great with their school work, and got on their laptops when they were supposed to. We got to do a lot of things as a family, like watching movies and keeping ourselves entertained. The kids were troopers, so we were very fortunate.

What steps are you taking to come back strong?

Just staying active. Fortunately, everything is still open for now. So I’ve been busy with a lot of things.  

We’re looking at opening another fitness gym in the weeks ahead and have looked at some locations. Another boxing gym is still a possibility, too, through the charitable organization. But a lot of the timing will depend on what happens with the coronavirus. It has put a hold on a lot of things. It’s really hard to make predictions…we’ll have to wait and see.

What advice are you sharing with the people you love? 

Stay safe. I know that there are a lot of social media “experts” out there. But follow what the real experts are telling you. I understand the criticism of the masks, but we should be wearing those because they do help, along with social distancing, being careful. Stay strong and do what the professionals suggest.