Too Soon for Jermain Taylor?

By Cliff Rold

Six months ago, Jermain Taylor (27-1-1, 17 KO) of Little Rock, Arkansas could walk into any room and be introduced as “Champ.”  Specifically, he was the World Middleweight champion, ascendant to the throne, if not the esteem, of 160 lb. greats Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Harry Greb, Sugar Ray Robinson.

On September 29, 2007, Taylor was introduced to the power punching of Youngstown, Ohio’s Kelly Pavlik (32-0, 29 KO) and he was “Champ” no more.

Win or lose in this Saturday’s non-title rematch, contracted at 166 lbs., Taylor won’t get that distinction back.  To hear Taylor and his camp tell it, that isn’t the primary concern.  This is about retrieving a measure of pride on the way to belts and glories down the road.  The question that stands out is whether or not Taylor is coming back to Pavlik too soon.

It’s a story as old as boxing itself.  The vanquished warrior agreeing to lock eyes again with his conqueror, with his own mortality and lack of invincibility, certain that victory can be had where there was none the last time around. 

It is of course not just an old story.  It is also a told story.

When Taylor, 29, steps between the ropes he’ll be able to look backwards at results like Evander Holyfield W12 Riddick Bowe and Rocky Graziano KO6 Tony Zale as classic examples of fighters who successfully pulled of the trick of avenging a defeat.  Taylor will in turn be trying to avoid results like Carlos Monzon KO3 Nino Benvenuti and Ricardo Mayorga W12 Vernon Forrest, classic examples of the conquered remaining so. 

What is the difference between victory and defeat on these occasions?  Is there a formula for Taylor to follow?  I’m certain that some statistics could be extrapolated, some bell curves generated, that would make it appear so but the nature of rematches seems more suited to the elements of psychodrama than slide rule applications.  The character of the fights and fighters are so singular as to make them formulas unto themselves.

In cases like Holyfield-Bowe II and Graziano-Zale II, what seems to stand out is that the conquered took a deep breath, and interim bouts, before re-engaging.  Taylor, based on the first bout with Pavlik and his performance in bouts with Kasim Ouma and Cory Spinks prior to that, looks like a fighter not quite comfortable in his own skin.  He looks like a fighter who needs a deep breath and some interim action to get his feet back under him. 

Taylor will attempt to prove that thinking wrong and can look to recent, and comparable, fare for inspiration.  Last year, Israel Vasquez lost the World Jr. Featherweight title to Rafael Marquez in seven rounds.  In that bout, Marquez won the bulk of the rounds but was forced to survive a terrifying knockdown in the third round.  Their immediate return, also last year, flipped the tables with Vasquez dominating the action and winning by sixth-round stoppage.  Vasquez, unlike Taylor, has never looked uncomfortable in knowing who he is in the ring so it may not be the best comparison point.

The bottom line is that no one, not Taylor or Pavlik or the viewers at home, will know whether Taylor has taken this fight too soon until the bell sounds to end the rematch on Saturday night.

Report Card

All that psycho-babble and “hey look how many historical references I can conjure” rhetoric aside, the fight itself bears room for analysis.  Pavlik and Taylor tested each other to their limits in the first bout with Pavlik graduating into the upper echelons of the game and Taylor verifying that the problems he’d had with previous foes were indicative of problems in general; verifying that he still had some studying to do. 

Now, like an aspiring attorney looking at a second trip to the bar, Taylor will attempt to validate the years of toil and sweat that have marked his time as a pugilist.  Can he reverse his failure?

Let’s go to the report card.

Speed: Pavlik, 25, doesn’t appear to be naturally quicker than Taylor.  However, he showed in the first bout that he was quicker in the one place that matters: Pavlik’s punches got there first when it counted.  It had more to do with technique than the benefit of high twitch muscle fibers.  Pavlik was more consistent and accurate with the jab, his left hooks were more compact, and his right hand was straight and hard enough to make the ghost of Monzon smile.  Taylor, a 2000 U.S. Olympic Bronze medialist, once displayed an excellent jab; as a prospect it was his jab that made many invest in his rising stock.  That jab slowly disappeared as a regular and effective weapon against stern competition like Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright.  That’s not been a good thing as a hard jab was his chief aid in landing what can be robotically stiff power punches.  Against Pavlik, the jab was used only in spots.  If it’s not back all night on Saturday, if Taylor goes to the ropes and tries to fight in flurries again instead, than natural speed won’t overcome boxing speed.  This will not, after all, be a sprint race.  Pre-Fight Grades: Pavlik B; Taylor B

Power: Look at the two fighters records and this one is easy.  Pavlik is the power man in this bout as he was in the first.  That doesn’t mean Taylor can’t punch.  Taylor had Pavlik in real trouble in the second round last September and is entirely capable of hurting him again.  For single shot, snapping power Taylor may even be the more dangerous man.   Pavlik, however, has shown that he is more susceptible to power shots early in fights.  That could be a result of the struggle he encounters in making 160 lbs.  This bout won’t offer the same struggle.  Pavlik has displayed lots of what could be called thudding, or grinding, power at 160 but, when he has a few extra pounds on him, the thuds become snaps in short order and the technique remains the same.  That could make Pavlik’s power more dangerous in the rematch than it was in the original encounter.  Pre-Fight Grades: Pavlik A; Taylor B

Defense: Pavlik’s popularity has risen with his reputation as an action fighter.  Action fighters never build their reputations on defense.  The lure of this bout is the example set forth last September: for as long as it lasts, each of these guys will hit and get hit.  Pavlik, though, is underrated defensively.  He blocks well with his arms, absorbing and partially deflecting incoming fire.  In the bout prior to Taylor I, against Edison Miranda, he did an excellent job of using his right hand to block shots on both sides of his head.  Taylor’s best defense seems to come from using his legs to keep him outside of range of Pavlik’s right hand but Taylor tends to hold his hands low which means that, when he doesn’t gauge distance accurately, he’s getting hit.  Pre-Fight Grades: Pavlik B; Taylor B-

Intangibles: This gets back to the questions asked above.  Is Taylor mentally ready for the rematch?  Can he push aside the memories of the first bout?  Conversely, one could ask if Pavlik will potentially be overconfident.  Here’s what we know for sure.  Taylor has been visibly frustrated as his competition has become more challenging.  Win or lose, he struggles and he doesn’t seem to have a second gear when pushed.  Pavlik has risen to the occasion in all of his big tests and shown the ability to get off the floor and finish.  Taylor, in the first fight, was assumed to be the better athlete.  That may or not be the case, but Pavlik has certainly shown himself to be more fighter thus far.  Until proven otherwise, Pavlik has to be assumed as the man with the advantages here.  Pre-Fight Grades: Pavlik A-; Taylor B-

Overall Pre-Fight Report Card: Pavlik B+; Taylor B

In closing, this rematch should be fun but the result doesn’t seem much in doubt.  Pavlik-Taylor I played out as a moment of ascendancy, one fighter pushing through to the finish line of his development while another completed the growing concern that he was as good as he ever would be.  Pavlik is likely to have learned from the mistakes he made the first time around.  Taylor has been making the same mistakes (low hands, robo-punching) his whole career and compounded them in recent years with less reliance on his jab.  It would be surprising if any of that has been ironed out in the last six months.  I’m not sure they’d be ironed out with a few bouts in between this rematch either.

Look for Pavlik to repeat this weekend and probably over a shorter span.  Pavlik KO 6 on Saturday.
 
Cliff’s Notes…

As much enthusiasm as I’ve displayed for the undercard on this weekend’s HBO pay-per-view show, one might think I’d have something to say about it here.  Alas, those fights are good enough for report cards of their own so look for those in the next couple days.  As to the rest of my thoughts in the last week, lots of clicks below:

Updated BoxingScene Ratings: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=12534
The T.V. Fights of the Week: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=12565
Quintana-Williams: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=12550
Ottke-Michalczewski: https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=12591

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them.

Cliff Rold is a member of the Ring Magazine Ratings Advisory Panel and the Boxing Writers Association of America.  He can be reached at roldboxing@hotmail.com