By Amy Green
Kelly Pavlik and Edison Miranda DELIVERED. In a bout that was predestined to outshine the main event, Kelly Pavlik knocked Miranda out of the #1 WBC spot by way of a spectacular seventh round knock out and into contention for a possible match with Jermain Taylor.
True to his word leading up to the fight, Pavlik played the role of the bully, backing Miranda up, confusing him, trading heavy shots with the tough Colombian from the minute the bell started their toe to toe slugfest. Miranda fared a little better during the fifth round, landing some decent combinations on Pavlik but his success was short lived. Round six signaled that the end to this war was near.
Miranda went to the canvas twice courtesy of Pavlik’s right handed power, with HBO’s broadcast team berating referee Steve Smoger in unison for his slow attention to the punishment Miranda was absorbing along the ropes. Smoger alerted himself to the business at hand when Miranda spat his mouthpiece out, and penalized him, but his slow actions prevented Pavlik from stopping Miranda for good during the waning seconds of the round.
Pavlik hammered Miranda in the seventh, pummeling the brash talking Miranda into defeat in less than two minutes of the round, with his corner on the steps to the ring, waiting to end the destruction should Smoger have erred on the side of negligent and let the fight continue. Pavlik emerged the big winner, silencing Miranda’s pre fight calling out of Jermain Taylor.
Taylor, as expected, won over Cory Spinks, (ho hum) but hardly in a decisive fashion. Emanuel Steward lapsed into profanity reminiscent of Lewis/Tyson toward the latter two rounds of the fight in an effort to make Taylor produce some action similar to his press conference aggression, but Taylor ended the bout with his trainer’s expletives falling on deaf ears.
Post fight, Taylor maintained that Spinks ran all night and when pressed by Larry Merchant on the subject of fighting Kelly Pavlik, Taylor did a little running of his own, saying he would fight anyone for "big money." Kelly Pavlik by comparison in his post fight remarks to Merchant, was poised, calm, straightforward and all about winning and not all about the Benjamin’s. Yes indeed he’d like to fight Jermain Taylor.
The answers Taylor came up with for Larry Merchant were as inconclusive as
his victories Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright. His wins over B-Hop were debatable at best- I believe Hopkins won the first outing and Taylor barely earned his "W" second time ‘round. His draw against Winky was due to the fact Winky elected to coast and not kick it up a notch and be aggressive with Taylor during the last two rounds.
A split decision against Cory Spinks is hardly a convincing win for Taylor, who failed to cut off the ring against his elusive opponent, and had a pretty pathetic punch output for a usually aggressive and accurate fighter.
Now is not the time for Taylor to look for the big bucks…now is the time for Little Rock’s favorite son to step up and face the Ghost from Youngstown or be haunted by not taking the fight that would silence critics- whether they be fans, foes or media.
