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Maybe Taylor has fallen off. He didn't look good his last two fights. Maybe a tough run took something out of him.
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He looked fine early, was bullying Teo and smothering him. Touched his body well. But Teo figured out the holes in his game and explored them. Taylor is limited as a boxer, no idea why the hype got so high, he’s big and active, but just not as skilled as most top guys. -
i picked teo to win and i said the same thing in the haney threads a few weeks, them guys at 140 arent much good theres nothing more to it than that. prograis, taylor, ramirez would be fringe world level in terms of talent at welterweight or lightweight, taylors a solid fighter but he fought someone for the first time who is a real top level talentComment
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No he looked a few levels below the guy that beat Regis and Ramirez. That being said, Teo just had the perfect style to beat him, he was always one or two steps ahead of him defensively and offensively. Taylor was really discouraged not being able to deal with Teos athleticism.Comment
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Didn’t look too different from what I saw. He was just in there with a guy that was so much faster than the other 140s. He was faster on the trigger every timeComment
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Maybe is Lopez just better than Prograis and Ramirez. I guess these fights took a lot from Taylor.Comment
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I have been a very vocal critic of Lopez in the past. I thought he got over hyped for a win against a guy who had to go for shoulder surgery the next day, and who was able to take over round 8-11. But that's two high level fighters that Lopez faced that looked uncharacteristically bad, and that's hard to call coincidence.
In this case it was that Lopez was faster, hitting harder, more active, and his timing was better. Almost every time Taylor tried to start, Teo got it right back with interest, and Taylor couldn't return when Teo was starting. After round 2, Teo just shut Taylor down. I think part of the problem was that Taylor caught Teo flush several times and it didn't do anything, while Teo was forcing Taylor to reset with his punches. That's bad for one's confidence.
Teo was also on point with his use of distance. He was varying it up, sometimes popping out, often off line which was a nice surprise because he's had a bad habit of disengaging straight back with his head in the center in the past. Other times he'd circle and then step to Taylor as Taylor was trying to follow, disrupting Taylor's rhythm. And sometimes he'd hold his ground when Taylor was expecting him to back up, which is why Taylor was looking like he was smothering himself all night, throwing weak single shots and then tying up himself. Taylor was at the end of Lopez's power shots, and smothering his own, and you could tell he didn't understand why that was happening.
Teo being capable of this kind of performance really tells me that I badly misread him. That was impressive. This fight is what it looks like when someone shuts another person's game down. That's actually even more impressive that Loma was able to come back in when he did. In this fight, Teo lived up to his moniker and really took over the fight. Watching Taylor's numbers just stop and drop was impressive.
I still think he's a jackass with a lot of the things he said, but that's a very good win for him.Comment
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Or maybe the alcohol-fueled episode in that night club, dating back to December 2019, was just the beginning of a bigger problem. Sergey Kovalev's story should teach something in that regard.Comment
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and Teo didn't look much like the guy who failed against Kambosos and struggled with Sandor Martin. Boxing is unpredictable like that.
I thought Taylor would easily defeat Lopez.Comment
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Definitely not. He’s dead at the weight IMO. You could see it in his output and in his legs. Also looked like there wasn’t much snap in his punches.Comment
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