By Dave Lahr: After suffering a 12th round TKO to WBC super middleweight champion Carl Froch on April 25th, Jermain Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KOs) is looking at boxing career that is seriously in a tailspin, and it’s unclear whether Taylor can get it back to where it was two years ago. In losing to Froch, Taylor was beaten for the third time in his last four fights. Whatever excuses that Taylor had before, they’re not going to work now because his career is looking in bad shape.

Before his bout with Froch on April 25th, Taylor was in a situation where he desperately needed a big win over the British fighter to get a title and to stay relevant in the sport.

Things didn’t go well for Taylor, who after starting the fight well, knocking Froch down in the 3rd round, Taylor once again had problems with his stamina as he ran out of gas in the 2nd half of the fight and let Froch climb his way back into the fight.

The exact same thing that occurred in Taylor’s first fight with Kelly Pavlik in September 2007, a fight in which Taylor led early on but tired out quickly and was stopped in the 7th.

Taylor then fought a rematch with Pavlik in February 2008, and this time ended up tiring late in the fight, just enough so that Pavlik could win. It was a close fight going into the last two rounds and Taylor was well in the position to win the fight had he not faded and lost on points.

The loss to Froch puts Taylor in the position where he’s going to have to earn any future title shots against one of the super middleweight champions by having to beat one of the top contenders. At 30, I’m not entirely sure that Taylor can beat any of them.

I think Taylor would have a good chance of knocking one of them out in the first five rounds, but if the knockout didn’t come, Taylor would find himself having to win on points and that’s where things get difficult for him due to his stamina problems.

There really isn’t an easy way to get around Taylor’s problems with tiring out. Either he fixes the problem, or else Taylor will turn into a gate keeper or opponent for the champions to kick around. Based on his name value, Taylor will likely continue to get high visibility bouts in the short term.

However, if Taylor continues to be beaten like this, he will likely end up as a gate keeper for the up and coming prospects and contenders. I don’t know if this is something that Taylor would want for himself, because it would mean much smaller paychecks than what he’s been accustomed to getting.

And Taylor would have to get used to losing more and more often. That would be something that I have my doubts would sit right with Taylor, who at one time was considered to be the best fighter in the middleweight division with two wins over Bernard Hopkins.

I think Taylor made a mistake in moving up to the super middleweight division, because the fighters are bigger and stronger than the middleweights. Also, the quality of fighters is much better than the mediocre talent that resides in the middleweight division.

If Taylor was smart, he’d move back down to middleweight and go after one of the champions, preferably WBA title holder Felix Sturm. I think Taylor could beat Sturm even with stamina problems. The WBA has mostly poor contenders in the top 15, and I could see Taylor holding onto title for long time unless the quality in the division improves suddenly.