Taylor rededicates Himself to Training for Abraham Bout – News

By Sean McDaniel: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KO’s) is planning on going back to the basics in working on his problematic conditioning issues by moving his training camp from Miami, Florida, to the sweltering hot Houston, Texas, where Taylor will be training at George Foreman’s boxing gym.

Taylor, who has been plagued with stamina problems dating back to his two fights against Bernard Hopkins in 2005, is hoping that a 10 week training camp away from the distractions of Miami will be just what he needs to get him in excellent shape for his October 17th Super Six tournament bout against former International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Arthur Abraham (30-0, 24 KO’s) at the O2 World Arena, in Berlin, Germany.

Taylor has lost three out of his last four fights and more or less has his career on the line in the Super Six tournament. Taylor can ill afford to lose to Abraham nor can he afford to be swept by all three of his group I. opponents.

As of now, not too many boxing experts are giving Taylor much if any chance to win the tournament and in some cases, they don’t see Taylor winning any of his group I bouts. The fight against Abraham, 29, might be Taylor’s best chance to pick up a win, because Abraham isn’t a busy fighter in the ring in the past few years and could possibly be outworked by Taylor.

Indeed, Abraham’s work rate – or lack thereof – is very similar to the low punch output of Jeff Lacy, a recent opponent of Taylor who was soundly defeated by Jermain in a 12 round decision win in November 2008. Abraham, obviously, has more left in the tank than Lacy at this point, but unless Abraham is able to increase his work rate in a dramatic way, he may find that he doesn’t have the tools to beat Taylor.

If the fight comes down to a tactical battle of jabs, Taylor wins this one without any problems. Taylor doesn’t get tired when all he has to do is jab. It takes a fighter putting constant pressure on Taylor for him to tire out. Thus far, Kelly Pavlik, Carl Froch and to a lesser extent Winky Wright, where all able to take Taylor deep and cause him to struggle.

However, I’m not so certain that Abraham has it in him to do the same thing. The problem is Abraham has even more stamina problems than Taylor and is only capable of fighting hard for 20 to 30 seconds of every round without needing long extended rest breaks against the ropes to replenish his energy.

In effect, Abraham is like an old fighter the way he needs to rest against the ropes. Abraham has been doing this for quite some time dating back to his first fight against Edison Miranda in September 2006. His conditioning has gotten worse since then if that’s believable.

Abraham has been able to disguise his conditioning problems by knocking out the mostly over-matched opponents that he’s been in with since 2006, stopping Sebastien Demers, Khoren Gevor, Elvin Ayala, Miranda in a rematch, Raul Marquez and recently Mahir Oral. However, Abraham struggled badly in his fight against Lajuan Simon in March of 2009, and appeared to barely beat him because of his inability to fight hard for three minutes of every round.

It’s unclear whether Taylor’s new training camp will change anything. He’s 31 now, and has suffered from this stamina problems for the past four years. It’s very likely that this is something that is beyond change. This is why Taylor needs to learn how to fight smart, use his boxing skills and focus on staying on the move in the 11th and 12th rounds, the part of the fight where Taylor often runs into problems due to fatigue issues.

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