Photo: Tom Casino/SHOWTIME – By Matt Stein: WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (24-0, 19 KOs) is running into former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-2-1, 17 KOs) at exactly wrong time in his career. On Saturday night at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, in Mashantucket, Connecticut,, Froch, 31, will be facing a re-energized Taylor who will walk over anything to get a title and destroy anyone to bring his career back after suffering two defeats to Kelly Pavlik.
Taylor, 30, is a different fighter from the one that lost to Pavlik, trust me, and looked nothing short of sensational in defeating former IBF super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy by a one-sided 12-round decision in November 2008.
The differences between Froch and Taylor are dramatic. Taylor is fast, powerful and excellent at fighting at a distance, whereas with Froch, he’s slower, a slightly less dangerous puncher and who likes to fight more at mid range where he bombs away with uppercuts and hooks.
Power – You could say that Taylor and Froch probably punch with pretty much the same power. However, due to Taylor’s much better hand speed, he ends up being the much better puncher in my view. Don’t get me wrong, Froch can hit plenty hard but due to his poor hand speed it diminishes his power in a big way.
Froch throws more clubbing punches and gets his victories by battering his opponents into submission. My guess is that Froch would have far less knockouts on his record if he had fought much better competition in his career, because he’s fought mainly C-class fighters for the most part.
Speed – Taylor is the much faster puncher of the two. It’s not even a close comparison. As a middleweight, Taylor was always one of the fastest punchers in the division. Up until he fought Pavlik, his hand speed was enough for Taylor to get by pretty much everyone with the exception of Winky Wright, who Taylor fight a 12-round draw with in June 2006.
However, Taylor made a big mistake of trying to slug it out with Pavlik in their first fight in September 2007 and ended up getting stopped in the 7th. In their rematch, Taylor’s hand speed was more of factor, although he still ended up losing a close 12-round decision. Many boxing fans felt that Taylor should have been given the nod and given the victory.
Experience – Taylor has a big advantage in this category, starting with his Bronze Medal in the 2000 Olympics. As a pro, Taylor has fought much better opponents in Wright, Kassim Ouma, Pavlik, Cory Spinks, Raul Marquez, Bernard Hopkins (who Taylor twice defeated), Alex Bunema, and William Joppy. In Froch’s case, he only has Jean Pascal to show for his entire seven year pro-career in terms of a big named opponent. That’s not a good sign for a fighter taking on someone as experienced as Taylor.
Perhaps if Taylor was an old fighter, it might not matter that Froch has had limited experience in the ring, but that’s not the case here. Taylor is a year younger than Froch and doesn’t have a lot of mileage on him.
Prediction – I see Taylor winning this fight by a knockout. The crowd will be overwhelmingly in Taylor’s favor and Froch will likely be having an out of body experience as he faces an opponent with skills that he’s never faced before. Taylor should have victory by the 8th round.
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