“Fighting Words” – Jermain Taylor: Undisputed, Undeserving

[Mr. David]

Grease-man must've lost a lot of money on Hopkins.

Taylor is plenty deserving. He beat Hops twice. That's deserving enough. As far as "underwhelming" goes...anyone who expected Taylor to look overwhelming vs the defensive minded Hopkins is an idiot. Taylor did well.

A writer who bets on a fight that he's covering would be biased, a compromise of ethics.

I say Taylor is underwhelming because I can count the rounds he won in both fights combined on two hands, because he didn't take the belts, but rather usurped them via controversial decisions.

Taylor will show that he is plenty deserving when he successfully defends against other top notch middleweights. He deserves a fight off, which he will likely take, after facing the top middleweight twice in a row, but afterwards, he must face a Winky Wright or Felix Sturm or Kingsley Ikeke or other top five middleweight.

I just couldn't write something positive about Taylor, considering I thought he lost both fights, looking tentative, underwhelming and with flaws that other, prime middleweights would exploit.

We shall see where Taylor goes from here.

Oh, and the last name's not pronounced that way.

You have a decent point about Hopkins being defensive minded, and it was infuriating to watch Hopkins only throw one punch at a time, but Taylor was similarly defensive minded, never opening up and letting go, really, just waiting, waiting, waiting. It shows intelligence in Taylor, that he still found Hopkins to be dangerous with his counters, but it is not how one takes it to the champion and distances himself from the pack.

[Super_Lightweight]

hmm

Like I said, Taylor would never look impressive vs Hopkins. No one would. You cannot make the man fight. It's difficult. Taylor beat him the best way he could. The wins are legit and it's in the books. Taylor will look impressive in future fights. He has looked impressive vs anyone not named Hopkins.

No one made a name for themself any better than Taylor with their performances leading up to the Hopkins fight, so no one deserved a shot anymore than he. Additionally, from watching the top 160 lbs guys like Ikeke, Abrahman, Sturm, and so forth...well, Taylor would deafeat them all to be blunt.

[Mr. David]

The point is Taylor is the undisputed Champ, Undefeated, and willing to learn. He knows that he is still young in his career and he has alot to learn. What makes him a good champ is the fact that he is professional, unlike BHop the ****** bum who always has excuses and is sooooo unprofessional. Taylor has a good career in front of him, maybe not great but good. Stop trying to discredit his status.

Yes, Taylor is undefeated, still learning and young in his career. He has an amiable personality, but you also walk right into my argument, that his demeanor, as opposed to the other, more-difficult to promote personalities (Sturm, Ikeke) earned him the tag of heir apparent before he had fought a single top ten middleweight.

You're right, though, Taylor is always professional, rarely makes excuses beyond valid ones (like the head butts in the first fight... if it's valid for people to complain about Holyfield's head, it's okay for Taylor to do the same about Hopkins).

In "discredit[ing] his status," I'm merely questioning just how undisputed he is, with controversial decisions over a man that he got to face before others did, considering that he has yet to face these others and has yet to show his superiority. All that he has shown is that he can take two close, close, close controversial decisions over a man who fights less than a minute per round, a man who a majority of experienced press felt won these fights, although there was more of a split this time.

Again, we shall see where Taylor goes, and that is part of the beauty of him being on the fast track... he will be gunned for now, and will get to show precisely why people got behind him on the track to the title shots.

[Mr. David]

Like I said, Taylor would never look impressive vs Hopkins. No one would. You cannot make the man fight. It's difficult. Taylor beat him the best way he could. The wins are legit and it's in the books. Taylor will look impressive in future fights. He has looked impressive vs anyone not named Hopkins.

No one made a name for themself any better than Taylor with their performances leading up to the Hopkins fight, so no one deserved a shot anymore than he. Additionally, from watching the top 160 lbs guys like Ikeke, Abrahman, Sturm, and so forth...well, Taylor would deafeat them all to be blunt.

Good points with the first part. Taylor would never look impressive against Hopkins, at least not the Taylor that showed up for these fights. And it is difficult to look good against Hopkins, unless you're willing to take the chances of taking the hard counters. Frankly, it ended up the right strategy for Taylor, as he took two controversial decisions, both of which are, as you say, in the books.

As for who he has looked impressive against, the names were not even top ten middleweights. Raul Marquez was a junior middleweight, William Joppy was a destroyed fighter, physically and especially mentally. Daniel Edouard was a fall guy. Yes, Taylor looked superb, but, like you said, no one made a name other than Taylor, and that is because he is American and amiable and easy to promote. That is a major contributor to his title opportunity, the promotional aspect.

Ikeke, Abraham and Sturm are still untested, too, with only Sturm having received big fight experience in America, but it's difficult to be sure about Taylor's performances against them until it occurs, and until we see how well the three of them do in their coming fights.

I'm afraid that I may not be able to get back to this thread for another day and a half, unless I procrastinate with my other priorities (a likelihood, unfortunately), but hope that you have a good day!

[Super_Lightweight]

hmm

If Taylor continues to make 160, he'll fight all of those guys and win impressively. Physically they just don't compare. No one is gonna outbox Taylor. Whoever beats him at 160 is going to have to have real thump. Masoe might have some thump based on his record but I dunno. We'll see. One thing's for sure...I couldn't imagine Taylor having as much trouble with DLH as Sturm did. Taylor would stopped Oscar late.

[monkeyboy]

I'm enjoying this thread and this debate. Thanks dgreisman for not allowing anyone to pull this down into a boring, unreadable insult fest. Nice to see dissenting opinions as long as they are supported by evidence.

[Easy-E]

If you can show where I used anything that would compromise my integrity, aside from having an opinion, which is allowed in a column and not a straight-news report (and even straight reporting in boxing is subjective, based on how you score rounds), then please dictate how so, and I will read it respectfully.

The language used in that article is unnecessary. taylor obviously has the skills to be a champion, and his first 20 fights have prepared him to become what he is today, the undisputed middleweight champion. i think we will see how good taylor really is when he fights different competition. Have you ever seen anyone look impressive against bernard hopkins?? NO, therefore i believe its unnecessary to call taylor an undeserving champion. he did what he did through hard work and dicipline, and was able to beat the current champion, twice. Undeserving? hardly

[Manny_P]

hahahahaha. ****in hater!

[RastaSmoker]

Jermain Taylor, having defeated longtime great Bernard Hopkins on two consecutive occasions, is the undisputed middleweight champion.

He is also unimpressive, underwhelming and undeserving.

He is a champion of circumstance, a hero of happenstance, a man whose career has been advanced by favorable promoting by Lou DiBella and the suits at HBO, as well as by his amiable personality and admirable pedigree.

For his first twenty fights, Taylor preyed on undersized, lesser talented lambs, victims in preparation of his future coronation, a destiny that seemed certainty as time passed, as Hopkins aged and his planned retirement approached.

The 2000 Olympic bronze medalist stepped up his opposition in the summer of 2004, stopping former junior middleweight Raul Marquez – who subsequently retired – and then wrapping up the year with a shutout of William Joppy – who should’ve retired after the beating Hopkins had given him twelve months prior. [details]

. This is a bad article. Quit finding ways to hate on him.

[druth]

I can understand why you wrote the article, however it's pretty apparent that you favor Hopkins over Taylor for whatever reason.

What a lot of people don't understand is that (aside from Roy Jones), no one has ever been able to take Hopkins off his gameplan. He has a (boring) style that slows the fight, to which he can dictate the pace. Most fighters don't have the patience to fight with him like that, hence his superb record.

Taylor did everything he could do in the ring, given who he was fighting. Fighters aren't going to average 70-90 punches around versus B-Hop because of his counterpunching ability. Taylor simply worked with what he had, and although it was a pretty boring fight (both were actually), he did enough to win.

No one is going to beat Hopkins decisively simply because of his style. Basing Taylor's ability level off of the Hopkins fight is like comparing Gretzky to Lemieux, it can't be done. Two totally different styles.

Taylor dominated in every fight up until this point, with progressively tougher opponents each time. He passed this test with flying colors, and I honestly don't think there's a middleweight out there right now that can push him harder than B-Hop did. Lacy is a fun fighter to watch, but he'd be giving up over 5 inches of reach. He doesn't have NEARLY the defensive skills of Hopkins and would have a tough time getting inside on Taylor. Winky and Taylor would be about the same as the Hopkins fights, aside from the jab count.

In closing, Taylor IS the best middleweight out there right now, like it or not.