By Scott Gilfoid: At today’s conference call, former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor has a refreshingly honest appraisal of his situation that he faces in his Super Six bout against former IBF middleweight champion Arthur Abraham on October 17th, at the O2 World Arena, Kreuzberg, in Berlin, Germany.
Taylor had this say about his chances at beating Abraham: “As long as I don’t get tired I’m going to win the fight.” Indeed, Taylor has this fight in the bag as long as his stamina holds out. Taylor is bigger than the 5’10” Abraham and has a 2 1/2″ reach advantage along with much faster hands.
There’s little question that Abraham will be physically at a disadvantage against the bigger and faster Taylor. Abraham’s whole chance of winning rests essentially on him being able to overwhelm Taylor with punches and get him out of there. He won’t be able to match Taylor’s hand speed and probably won’t be able to outwork him either. However, the fight is being held in Germany, so even if Abraham does end up getting dominated by Taylor, Abraham might still end up winning that route.
Hopefully, the judges don’t mess up the scoring of the fight because there will be a lot of boxing fans from outside of Germany watching this fight because it’s a Super Six bout and they will cry bloody murder if Abraham ends up winning a home town decision over Taylor.
Taylor: “The only reason I lost to Carl Froch was because I got tired. I wasn’t prepared. The best fighter lost because he didn’t train right.” Taylor is right about his reasons for losing to Froch. He was easily beating him until tiring out in the 2nd half of the fight.
The bout wasn’t close in the early going because Taylor was beating the slow moving, slow punching Froch to the punch. But Taylor gassed out in the later rounds and Froch seized upon the opportunity to rally and then score a knockout in the 12th with only 14 seconds left in the bout. Froch looked silly in the first half of the fight because he was getting plastered by Taylor at an alarming rate by his faster and harder shots. Unfortunately, Taylor got tired and Froch came back and won the fight with a knockout.
Taylor can’t afford to lose this fight to Abraham. Jermain needs to win at least two of his fights to resurrect his career. Even if he loses to someone like Mikkel Kessler, it will look good if Taylor can get by at least two of his Super Six foes. Of the fighters taking part in the Super Six tournament, Froch and Abraham seem the most beatable as far as I’m concerned.
They’re both good European fighters, but both have faced limited competition during their careers and look vulnerable. If Taylor can keep the shorter armed Abraham on the outside where he’s pretty much harmless, Taylor should be able to win this fight. Abraham often runs forward and throws flurries once or twice per round. Taylor needs to be ready for these awkward attacks and make sure to side step Abraham and pound him with single shots as he goes by.
I wouldn’t advise for Taylor to slug with Abraham, because that will play into Abraham’s hands. That’s really his only chance of winning the fight. For any exchanges that occur, the German crowd will be cheering loudly for every punch that Abraham throws, no matter if it lands or not. The judges will obviously be listening to the crowd noise and may end up giving Abraham credit for rounds that he was getting dominated in.
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