Things Look Ghostly for the Vengeful Taylor…
By Rui Zheng
I’ve ate my crow from September. For those of you who haven’t read my previous article, “Pavlik might not be ready for the big stage,” I basically stated that though Pavlik was a solid fighter, I thought Jermain Taylor was going to make a statement and box circles around his slower opponent. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I’ve always been a huge fan of Jermain Taylor. I love his modest attitude outside his ring and his fearlessness inside the ring. You may criticize his performances, but the fact is that his last 7 fights will have been against the following fighters: Kelly Pavlik twice, Corey Spinks, Kassim Ouma, Winky Wright, and Bernard Hopkins twice. Taylor fights the best fighters out there, and I’ve felt that he deserved some very unnecessary criticism for taking fights against Spinks and Ouma.
Kelly Pavlik is a fighter who can be quite deceiving. You look at him and you see a lanky boxer who doesn’t have the bulging muscles of your typical middleweight. Fortunately for him, he’s a boxer and not a bodybuilder. Pavlik’s right hand may not appear to be incredibly quick, but there’s a subtle snap to it right before it connects that puts his opponents to sleep. Not only that, but Pavlik has an underrated defense, keeping his hands high enough to block and parry punches yet low enough for him to launch a sustained attack on the poor sucker standing across from him in the ring.
In my previous article, I stated how the keys to the fight were going to be Taylor’s jab and Pavlik’s right hand. I had thought that Taylor had a major defensive weakness by keeping his left hand so low and that proved to be his downfall last September. Can Taylor possibly alter his mechanics so that he can maintain a full guard for the entire fight? My guess is that you’ll see Taylor come out with his hands up, but gradually the poor mechanics that were instilled in him from years ago will show up forcing him to drop that lower left hand again. Taylor is essentially tailor-made for a puncher who relies on a powerful right hand to do damage. Thus, I’m picking Pavlik by stoppage. If Taylor manages to win, don’t be surprised to see a Taylor/Pavlik III for the middleweight title sometime during the summer or fall. If Pavlik wins, then Taylor would go from HBO superstar to undercard in a matter of 2 fights.
Other thoughts:
- I was surprised to hear that Paul Williams was upset by Quintana last Saturday, but in retrospect it was not too shocking if you consider their styles. Paul Williams is a fighter who simply cannot deal with lateral movement due to his reliance on being able to set his feet when he throws his combinations. If you thought Quintana schooled Williams, then imagine what Mayweather would do. Regardless, I still would favor Williams in a fight with Cotto.
- Speaking of Cotto, there are talks of fighting one of three opponents this coming summer: Kermit Cintron, Antonio Margarito, or Ricardo Mayorga. From a boxing fan’s perspective, a fight with all three of them would be spectacular. I feel that Margarito would have the best shot of defeating Cotto, though.
- Finally, I’m confident that if Cotto and Mayweather both finish out the year undefeated, then we will see a megafight between the two sometime in 2009. There’s simply too much money to be made for this fight not to happen. As the saying goes, “if it don’t make money, then it don’t make sense/cents.”