By Eric Thomas: Former WBC/WBO middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (29-4-1, 18 KO’s) will be looking to get another win under his belt in the second fight of his comeback against the hard hitting Caleb Truax (18-1-1, 10 KO’s) on April 20th. Taylor, 33, has lost four out of his last six fights, but his 1-0 in his comeback.

Truax, 28, is meant to be a another safe tune-up bout for Taylor. However, if you’ve seen Taylor’s knockout defeats at the hands of Kelly Pavlik, Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham in the past five years, you’ll know that there really isn’t any safe fights for Taylor. Every fighter that faces Taylor has a real chance of knocking him out if they can land something big on his vulnerable chin. However, it’s not easy to stand up to Taylor’s offensive power, blinding hand-speed, and his excellent jabs.

Those weapons make Taylor very hard to stand in against, because you’ve got to be able to take a lot of big shots in order to land your own. Taylor’s last opponent Jessie Nicklow did the best he could in pressuring Taylor, but he eventually was worn down with the mostly one-armed fighter and eventually taken out in the 8th round.

Taylor hurt his right hand in the 2nd round and had to fight the reminder of the bout using mostly his left hand. That was more than enough to beat Nicklow, because Taylor made it a point to jab him over and over again. It really softened up Nicklow’s face by the 8th round at which point Taylor got the stoppage.

Truax has faced mostly limited opposition from the 2nd tier during his career. In his last fight, Truax barely got by Andy Kolle by a 10 round split decision. The fact that he had to struggle to beat Kolle suggests that Truax’s power might not be all that good. He certainly doesn’t look fast in the fights I’ve seen him. He lands with good power but he can’t seem to throw left hands for some reason. I guess he didn’t learn early enough to use his left, so now it’s just there but not part of his offense. You have to have a two-fisted attack to beat a fighter like Taylor. I doesn’t matter how much power Truax has with his right hand. If he can’t punch with his right hand then he’s going to be in big, big trouble against a complete fighter and Taylor is a complete fight.