By Chris Williams: At 31, it would appear that former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (28-4-1, 17 KO’s) has seen better days in his boxing career. Taylor, once arguably the best fighter in the entire middleweight division three years ago, is now more of an afterthought for many boxing fans. Taylor has been knocked out in three out of his last five fights and has been beaten in four of them.

And things don’t seem to be getting better for him as you look ahead at Taylor’s future. On April 17th, Taylor will be facing unbeaten Andre Ward (21-0, 13 KO’s), perhaps the best fighter in the Super Six tournament, in a fight that will likely take place in Oakland, California. Ward would seem to be the wrong opponent for Taylor at this point in his career.

What Taylor needs right now is a nice easy fight of two to get his head back together so that he can try to recover from all the knockout losses he’s been suffering as of late. Taylor has been stopped in back to back fights. In his last bout, Arthur Abraham stopped Taylor with a one punch knockout in the 12th round on October 17th.

Taylor also suffered a 12th round knockout defeat to fellow Super Six tourney contestant Carl Froch on April 24th. There’s no shame in being knocked out by the likes of Abraham and Froch, because, after all, both of them are beasts with huge power. However, it isn’t a good sign that Taylor is being knocked out so frequently. You can ignore one knockout loss, but not three.

And these stoppages have come in rapid succession, all within the last two years. That would seem to be a sign that Taylor needs to take a break from boxing for awhile. I can understand Taylor not wanting to retire from boxing given his still early age of 31, but with that many knockouts occurring so frequently, Taylor needs to consider it.

Andre Ward will be going after him with both guns blazing on April 17th, and the way that Ward handled WBA super middleweight champion Mikkel Kessler in his dominating win over the Danish star on November 21st, it’s hard to see Taylor coming out of that fight in one piece. Taylor still thinks he can win the tournament, and maybe he can. But the indications are that he will have big problems against Ward and may end up suffering yet another knockout defeat.

It isn’t about talent, because Taylor has plenty of that. If you take away his knockout losses, Taylor would be a threat to beat any one of the Super Six tournament fighters. Taylor has better hand speed and power than most of them, including better overall boxing skills. His skills aren’t what the concern is. It’s his chin. Taylor’s punch resistance seems to have decreased since his bad knockout loss to Pavlik in 2007, and it doesn’t appear to be getting any better over time.

It’s hard to see Taylor wanting to continue on with his boxing career if he gets knocked out by Ward. He would have to get the hint at that point that it’s time to hand up the gloves or at least take some time off.