In the aftermath of Antonio Tarver's trilogy winning victory over Roy Jones Jr., most experts began to wonder what Tarver could possibly do next. Unfortunately for Tarver, the light heavyweight king, there is no money to be made in the light heavyweight division.
A third meeting with Glen Johnson is a possibility, but Tarver does not appear to have any interest in meeting Johnson for a third time. Let's face it, neither Tarver-Johnson bout was overly exciting and both bouts lacked the interest of the general public. After a mediocre first meeting, the two men staged a mediocre rematch. Based upon the lack of fan interest in the first two fights, I think it's safe to say that very few care about a third encounter.
Tarver suffers from the same problem as Shane Mosley and Bernard Hopkins. He beat a very popular fighter in Roy Jones, but is still unable to come close to the popularity level which Jones still possesses. Because of this cold hard fact, Tarver has to face widely recognized fighters or take very big risks in order to capture enough interest to gain "superstar" level purses. Even though Shane Mosley beat Oscar De La Hoya and was regarded as one of the best pound for pound fighters after the win, his career never took off in a big way and his popularity never soared after the win.
The same could be said for Bernard Hopkins, following his dominating win over Felix Trinidad. It took several years and a mega fight with Oscar De La Hoya, arguably the most popular fighter at the time, to get Hopkins back in the spotlight. The pay-per-view buyrates tell the story. Trinidad's bout with Winky Wright is still the 2005 record holder for pay-per-view buys and sold a considerable amount more than the bout between Bernard Hopkins and Jermain Taylor.
All of this relates to the problems Antonio Tarver is going to face in the road ahead. There are no "big money" fights at light heavyweight, the cruiserweight level and at the moment, nobody worthwhile is willing to move up in weight to face Tarver in the near future. Tarver could hold out to see if Hopkins' keeps his promise of meeting him upon beating Taylor in their December rematch, but I doubt Hopkins will come through. Even if Hopkins beats Taylor, the WBC has already ordered the winner to face Winky Wright. Hopkins could probably make about the same amount of money by facing Wright instead of Tarver and the risk factor is much lower.
That leaves one road for Tarver to follow and that road leads to the heavyweight division. I don't see Tarver being competitive against the giants of the division, but there could be some interesting bouts made. There are some serious risks for Tarver by making a leap to the heavyweights. While Tarver is a skilled fighter, he does not do anything in the ring that can be considered great. The boxing skills he possesses are good, but not great. The same could be said about his defense, his chin and his stamina. Roy Jones made his leap to the heavyweights by winning a decision over John Ruiz, a fighter who was tailor made for him to beat. Upon beating Ruiz, Jones knew his limitations and dropped back down to the light heavyweight division.
There are three fights that have been mentioned for Tarver at the heavyweight level and I see him as the underdog in all of them. Let's break them down one by one.
1. James Toney - Toney is built all wrong for Tarver. Antonio will not be able to fight James at close range or against the ropes. Toney is too slick, too seasoned and his hand speed is very underestimated. Tarver has shown to be prone to a good body attack and Toney is one of the best bodypunchers in the business.
2. Chris Byrd - I don't see anyone beating Byrd without possessing a very hard punch, being very aggressive and being very skilled at cutting off the ring. Tarver is not the best at cutting off the ring and his punch will not be a factor to a guy who went the distance with most of the biggest punchers in the heavyweight division. Tarver has never been a very aggressive fighter, which is exactly the kind of opponent Byrd tends to easily decision. Byrd still has enough juice in the tank to peck his way to victory.
3. Lamon Brewster - He may not be the largest heavyweight, but he is one of the hardest punching heavyweights. Brewster can turn out the lights with a single punch and his ability to take punishment is unmatched at heavyweight. Does anyone seriously see Tarver being able to punish Lamon in the same fashion as Wladimir Klitschko? Tarver stands a chance of outboxing Lamon, but is he strong enough to keep Lamon at bay? I see Lamon jumping on Tarver the same way as he did to Andrew Golota and that spells serious problems for Antonio.
As noted above, Tarver's potential heavyweight meetings come with a very high risk factor attached to them, but the risks may generate enough interest to make the bouts very profitable. From a financial perspective, the best possible bout would be against James Toney. The back and forth trash talking from the two best trash talkers in the game would alone be well worth the money. The styles of both men is sure to promise an exciting fight from beginning to end.
If there is one fighter in serious need of another big fight it is Tarver and if he wants to stay on top he needs to make a big fight in a hurry. He cannot make the same mistakes as Hopkins and Mosley, by not capitalizing on the buzz he received from winning a big fight. At 36 years of age, Tarver cannot afford to wait around for a Jermain Taylor like fighter to pop-up in his division. If he wants to go down in history as something more than being known as the guy who beat Roy Jones, he needs to take the bull by the horns and seek out the big money fights or else being the guy who bested Roy is all he will ever be.
