By Jason Kim: Things haven’t gone well for former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-2-1, 17 KOs) who comes into his April 25th bout against WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch (24-0, 19 KOs) having lost two out of his last three fights since 2007. Although in fairness to Taylor, both of those losses have occurred at the hands of the mean punching Kelly Pavlik and not just against any run of the mill middleweight in the division.
But, Taylor’s problems go back even further than the Pavlik bout all the way to 2005 with Taylor’s two hard fought wins over Bernard Hopkins. It was at this time that Taylor began having problems with his power, and particularly with his tendencies to fade late in his fights.
Taylor had a commanding lead over Hopkins in the first half both bouts only to tire out in the last six rounds and have struggle to get a victory. Naturally, someone say that Hopkins had a lot to do with that, but not really. Hopkins didn’t press the issue in either of the fight and fought cautiously, attacking sporadically with short combinations.
Taylor’s problems with stamina and lack of power would continue to plague him in subsequent bouts against Winky Wright whom he fought a 12-round draw with in June 2006, Kassim Ouma, Cory Spinks and in the 2nd fight against Pavlik in February 2008.
Even in Taylor’s 7th round TKO loss to Pavlik in September 2007, Taylor gassed out while trying to knock Pavlik out in the 2nd round after having dropped Pavlik. Instead if recovering his stamina a round later like most in shape younger fighters, Taylor stayed tired, throwing far fewer punches, until being knocked out by Pavlik in the 7th.
Recently, Taylor got his boxing career back on the winning track with a 12-round lopsided unanimous decision victory over Jeff Lacy in a WBC Super Middleweight Title Eliminator in November 2008. However, Taylor wasn’t pressed much by Lacy who looked like a shell of his prime 2006 form and didn’t make Taylor work hard in the 2nd half of the bout.
Now, after two years in which Taylor,30, hasn’t held any titles, Taylor’s hoping he can capture another title and get a new start for his career with a big win over Froch. This is an important fight for Taylor and a bout that he can ill afford to lose.
However, even in winning against Froch, things don’t get much easier with his number #2 and #3 challengers to the WBC title being blazing fast Americans Andre Ward and Andre Dirrell, both possibly even better than Froch. After those two, the competition drops off dramatically with super middleweights Jean Pascal, Karo Murat and Anthony Mundine next in line.
First things first, none of those potential bouts matter if Taylor can’t get by the tough Froch on April 25th. Taylor likes to point out that Froch doesn’t have much in the way of hand speed, calling him “Slow” but Froch has a good chin, and tends to apply steady unrelenting pressure against his opponents throughout his bouts. He’s like a tortoise, slow but very persistent.
If Taylor is looking for a short fight, his comeback may end up being equally short because Froch will wear him down and beat him.
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