Should Jermain Taylor retire?

By Jason Kim: Never mind Jermain Taylor dropping out of the Super Six tournament. That’s not what’s really important. Should he retire from boxing to save himself from suffering any more knockouts? Taylor, 31, was knocked out on Saturday night by Arthur Abraham in the 12th round in their Super Six tourney bout held in Berlin, Germany. The knockout defeat, Taylor’s third in the past two years, was an especially bad, leaving him flat on his back with both his arms and his legs convulsed in one prolonged spasm.

Taylor was later hospitalized and will be staying there for three days to have tests conducted on his brain to ensure that there was no serious after effects from his severe knockout loss. Let’s hope that nothing serious shows up on the brain scans. But Taylor clearly suffered a severe concussion, and needs to take some time off from boxing for his own good to rest for awhile.

As of now, the chances of Taylor continuing on in the Super Six tournament are in question. Allan Green, a top contender in the super middleweight division, is a possible replacement fighter for Taylor. Green has hand speed similar to Taylor and Andre Dirrell, making him an excellent choice to replace Taylor if it comes to that. But apart from the Super Six tourney, I think it might be a good idea for Taylor to consider hanging up his gloves and retiring from boxing.

I think he still has great physical skills and good power, but it’s worrisome that he’s losing by knockouts and not winning like he used to. Taylor has lost four out of his last five fights, getting stopped in three of them. Taylor’s losses have come against the following fighters: Kelly Pavlik (twice), Carl Froch and now Abraham. Maybe you can somewhat understand Taylor losing given the high talent of his recent opponents, but the fact that he’s being knocked out more and more leaves me with the impression that his punch resistance has decreased.

And beyond that problem, Taylor’s ability to fight well late in the fight appears to have gone down hill as well. Against Abraham, Taylor wasn’t pressured much and was allowed to fight as slow as he wanted, yet Taylor did poorly after the 8th round. I can give some of the credit to Abraham for that, because he did increase his punch rate a little during that time. But still Taylor looked tired, and his punches lost a lot of steam on them during that time.

It’s one thing that if Taylor’s only problem was that his punch resistance has taken a turn for the worse, but I can’t see how he can continue on if he can’t fight hard late in his fights without tiring out and getting stopped. Taylor isn’t getting knocked out early in his fights. He’s getting stopped after he gets tired out. Taylor was supposed to have fixed his stamina issues in his latest training camp, but from the looks of it, Taylor is still experiencing problems with his stamina.

If Taylor does decide to continue to fight, I don’t know how he can continue unless he plans on taking a year or two and fighting marginal opposition. I think he would do well against B class fighters, but he’s kind of up there in age at 31. He’s not a young 31 like Hopkins was when he was the same age.

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