By Dan Ambrose: 36-year-old Jermain Taylor (32-4-1, 20 KOs) will be fighting IBF middleweight champion Sam Soliman (44-11, 18 KOs) on October 4th at a still to be determined location.
It’s hard to argue in favor of Taylor getting a world title shot considering that he hasn’t faced a high level opponent since he was beaten 5 years ago by Arthur Abraham and Carl Froch by stoppage defeats. But then again we’re talking about Taylor fighting who many boxing fans see as little more than a paper champion in 40-year-old Soliman.
With the way that the world titles are watered down at 160, and in many of the other divisions due to the multiple titles from the four sanctioning bodies, Taylor might as well be fighting for IBF title. Before Soliman was the IBF belt holder, Felix Sturm was the temporary champion, and he was seen as a paper champion as well.
Soliman had said he wanted to fight WBA middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin next as soon as he got done with his fight against Daniel Geale, but it looks like he had a change of mind. Soliman got a lot of attention by mentioning Golovkin’s name, but now that Golovkin is free with an open date for his next fight, Soliman is going in a different direction towards Taylor.
At least with Soliman fighting Taylor, he has a chance of winning. A fight against Golovkin would be pretty much a ceremonial handing over of his IBF title to him for Soliman if he’d accepted the fight. I wonder if Soliman will start mentioning Golovkin’s name if he gets by Taylor? It helps with publicity.
As shot as Taylor is as a fighter, I think he’s got an excellent chance of beating Soliman in this fight. Soliman has always done poorly against fighters with big power. He’s lost twice to Anthony Mundine, and also has a loss to Sakio Bika. Taylor punches at least as hard as those guys, but he’s got much better hand speed.
Since making a comeback in 2011 following a 2-year layoff between 2009 and 2011, Taylor has beaten the following fighters: Juan Carlos Candelo, Raul Munoz, Caleb Truax and Jessie Nicklow.Taylor’s last fight was last December.
Soliman fought last May in defeating Felix Sturm by a 12 round decision to win his IBF 160 pound title. Soliman has recent wins over Les Sherrington, Giovanni Lorenzo , Garth Wood and Eromosele Albert.
If Taylor doesn’t run out gas in this fight, then he should win without any problems. Soliman can’t punch and he’s mainly a guy that plays in tricky by bouncing around the ring and using odd angles. That probably won’t work against Taylor.
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