Commentaries: Jermain Taylor

It was announced on January 12th 2010 that former WBC and WBO Middleweight champion Jermain Taylor would drop out of the Showtime Super Six World Boxing Classic tournament and take a break from the sport. In other words Taylor had retired but thats not to say that he isn’t going to be back in the ring. The wheels were first set in motion back in 2007 when Jermain was at the height of his career he took back to back crushing defeats to the up and coming prospect, Kelly Pavlik. After the losses Taylor took a tune up fight against the once highly regarded power puncher Jeff Lacy. He would win with relative ease but his winning ways wouldn’t last for long. Carl Froch would fly out from home back in England to defend his WBC Super Middleweight belt against Jermain. After dominating Froch for the entire fight, Taylor looked like he was on his way to becoming a champion again but it would all go wrong.

If there was ever a fighter that was notorious for their bad cardio and stamina, it was Jermain Taylor. By the 12th round Taylor was exhausted, all he had to do was avoid Froch and he would have won but thats not how it went down. Froch would lay on a ton of pressure on Taylor, pushing him up against the ropes and unleashing a torrent of punches. Taylor had no answer for it and just took repeated blows to the face, forcing highly respected referee Mike Ortega to call an end to the fight just second before the round was due to end. Losses don’t get any worse than that. Taylor had worked his butt off for 11 rounds, he had the fight in the bag then he slows down for one round and seconds before the fight is due to end and he is to be named the new champion, he suffers a technical knock out. While his body may heal from the beating, his mind never would but despite that he would then jump into this tournament to get his career back on track, it wouldn’t. His first fight of the tournament would be against undefeated Armenian power puncher “King” Arthur Abraham. The ending of this fight would be much like that of his fight against Froch, instead this time it was Jermain that was taking a beating the entire fight. Abraham had an answer for everything Taylor tried to do, he was able to frustrate the former champ at every turn. Then in the 12th round Taylor would yet again start to slow down and Arthur would explode on him with a huge straight right hand that split the guard Taylor and landed square on his jaw knocking him instantly, leaving him stiffened up on the canvas.

It was at this point that a lot of fans started voicing their concerns, saying that Jermain should retire but at first he brushed off any thoughts. Then three months later he was finally announce that he was going to retire, to the delight of his fans who didn’t want to see him take another crushing loss. While Taylor may have retired for now, don’t expect it to last long, we never know when we will see him in the ring again.