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It is a common theme in boxing; the young unbeaten kid takes on a wily old fighter with fading aspirations, the older man frustrates the kid and negates his style before the kid wins a tight decision then moves into title eligibility.
In the case of Jermain Taylor the order was all wrong and he found himself fighting a foe with fading ambition for the world-titles when he took on Bernard Hopkins last July and then defended his newly acquired (well the ones that did not become scattered) titles in an immediate rematch. Twenty-four rounds of frustration saw Hopkins and Taylor annul one another to produce a pair of fights that could be described as either tactical or tedious. Taylor emerged with the all-important ‘W’s’ and the undisputed middleweight title, a moniker now sullied by the fights between Taylor and Hopkins.
So what does a young boy do? Well in the case of Taylor he jumps straight into a fight with an older, wilier boxer - yet in Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright he faces a fighter who has some ambition left after years of waiting unwearyingly for his big shots.
In fighting Wright, Taylor must surely hope to draw a line under those fights with Hopkins as well as legitimising his middleweight title – I say title and not titles because true to form the belts have become splintered at 160lbs, Taylor now holds the WBC and WBO versions of the belts. [details]
In the case of Jermain Taylor the order was all wrong and he found himself fighting a foe with fading ambition for the world-titles when he took on Bernard Hopkins last July and then defended his newly acquired (well the ones that did not become scattered) titles in an immediate rematch. Twenty-four rounds of frustration saw Hopkins and Taylor annul one another to produce a pair of fights that could be described as either tactical or tedious. Taylor emerged with the all-important ‘W’s’ and the undisputed middleweight title, a moniker now sullied by the fights between Taylor and Hopkins.
So what does a young boy do? Well in the case of Taylor he jumps straight into a fight with an older, wilier boxer - yet in Ronald ‘Winky’ Wright he faces a fighter who has some ambition left after years of waiting unwearyingly for his big shots.
In fighting Wright, Taylor must surely hope to draw a line under those fights with Hopkins as well as legitimising his middleweight title – I say title and not titles because true to form the belts have become splintered at 160lbs, Taylor now holds the WBC and WBO versions of the belts. [details]
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