Ward vs. Taylor on April 17th

By Jason Kim: Undefeated WBA super middleweight champion Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s) will be facing fellow American Jermain Taylor (28-4-1, 17 KO’s) on April 17th, in a Super Six tournament bout at a still to be determined location. This is great news for Taylor fans, who were concerned that he might not continue to participate in the Super Six tournament after experiencing a vicious 12th round knockout loss to Arthur Abraham in October 17th.

Given the severity of the knockout, there were many people who thought that Taylor would opt to bow out of the Super Six tourney. It would be hard to blame him if he did choose to step away, because the knockout loss was a bad one, leaving Taylor flat on his back with both his hands and his legs temporarily in a knockout spasm.

In addition that that, it was Taylor’s fourth loss in his last five fights, which includes three knockout defeats. The bad thing about the Super Six tournament is that all of the fighters are great, a factor that makes it hard on fighters that have been badly knocked out like Taylor.

There isn’t a chance to take easy fights in between to recover from bad knockout losses like many fighters like to typically do after being knocked out. In this case, Taylor, if he wants to continue in the tournament, has to keep moving forward to a fight against the dangerous Ward.

The one good thing that Taylor has going for him in this fight is Ward isn’t a real big puncher. Ward has good power, but he doesn’t have real huge power. Ward prefers to use his hand speed and movement to do most of his damage. Still, Taylor will be in great danger in this fight, especially in the later rounds when he’s been known to have problems.

It’s doubtful that Ward would purposively go after Taylor late in the fight and try to knock him out if he had the fight well in control. However, if Taylor fights Ward closely, then you could expect for Ward to be trying to finish Taylor off in the later rounds and shooting for the knockout win. This might not be an easy fight for Ward. Taylor is every bit as fast Ward, with better power with both hands.

Taylor is capable of hurting Ward if he lets his hands go in the early part of the fight. Taylor can’t fight conservatively like he did against Abraham and think he’s going to win the fight. Ward is too good to be beaten by jabbing alone, which is what Taylor did mostly in his fight with Abraham.

Ward, a former 2004 Olympic Gold Medalist for the United States, defeated World Boxing Association super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler by a shocking 11th round technical decision on November 21st. Ward dominated the entire fight, winning most of the rounds with his quicker hands and hard shots. Kessler never was able to get into the fight and looked bloody and defeated by the time the fight was stopped in the 11th round. Because of the one-sided win, many boxing experts have no revised their earlier estimates of picking Kessler to win the Super Six tournament and now see Ward as the eventual winner.

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