(Photo Credit: Craig Bennett / SHOWTIMET)By Jim Dower: Jermain Taylor (29-4-1, 18 KO’s) will be fighting tonight in a 10 round tune-up bout against over-matched Caleb Truax (18-0-1, 10 KO’s) at the Beau Rivage & Casino, in Biloxi, Mississippi. In addition to this fight, junior middleweight contender Erislandy Lara (15-1-1, 10 KO’s) will be fighting a 10 rounder against Ronald Hearns (26-2, 20 KO’s) in what looks to be another mismatch.

Taylor, 33, wants to shine against Truax so that he can keep moving forward to get a title shot against one of the middleweight champions. Taylor’s weight problems are apparently been taken care of, as he’s been keeping his weight down as of late.

However, it’s unclear whether Taylor’s problems with taking hard shots has been fixed because he’s only had one fight since coming back from a two year layoff. In his first fight back last December, Taylor defeated 5’9″ Jessie Nicklow by an 8th round TKO in a fight where Taylor took some punishment but ended up dominating with his jab. He injured his right hand early in the fight and had to use his left for the most part.

There’s still a lot of question marks about what Taylor has left. Truax, a fighter with an inflated record, won’t answer those questions in any real way. As of now, Taylor has lost four out of his last six fights. He does well when matched against weak opposition but when put in with fighters with talent and/or power things go badly for him.

Truax isn’t a big puncher, has little in the way of hand speed and doesn’t use his left hand much. This is going to be an easy fight for Taylor, but it may only prolong the inevitable. He’s a knockout waiting to happen. Once Taylor fights someone good, he’ll likely get stopped like in the past. The one good thing Taylor has going for him right now is the poor state of the middleweight division.

Kelly Pavlik and Arthur Abraham, two of the bigger punchers, have moved up to the super middleweight division so Taylor doesn’t have to worry about them. But he does have to worry about Sergio Martinez, who is arguably a bigger puncher than Abraham and Pavlik. Taylor might be able to beat WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., but he probably won’t get a shot against him before he gets knocked out by Pavlik or Martinez.

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In the other decent fight on tonight’s card, Cuban Erislandy Lara will have a slightly tougher fight against Ronald Hearns. As long as Lara can handle Hearns’ right hand power shots, he should do okay. Lara doesn’t have the style to make this a quick fight, however, because Lara is more of a pot shot fighter who likes to land one to two shots at a time rather than throwing prolonged combinations.

Hearns likes those kinds of fights because he tends to load up with his own pot shots much like his famous father Tommy “Hitman” Hearns used to do during his prime. Hearns has problems against fighters that throw flurries and who attack him in an all out attacks. Hearns was blasted out by Harry Joe Yorgey and Felix Sturm by flurries. That’s the way to beat Hearns, but I’m not sure that Lara can fight that way. I still think Lara will win but it could be a harder fight than it should be.