13.10.06 – By Ryan Laming: Over the past year, I’ve had the urge to write an article on Jermain Taylor. After his second fight with Bernard Hopkins, where he still really wasn’t getting the recognition he most rightly deserved, it became clear that someone should step up and say something. I think we’re morally obligated as fight fans. Here we have a young gun who steps up to the plate against a legend and holds his own. It doesn’t even matter which way you score the fights, Taylor stood up and showed grit when he needed to. Needless to say, I was impressed with his performance in both fights for the fact that in the second fight, he didn’t try to overextend or force matters. He didn’t offer The Executioner as many countering opportunities as most expected. He learned and improved on the first fight. His sheer talent or ability in the ring isn’t what I am trying to point out, though.
After the Hopkins bouts, Taylor’s team was saying he would be looking for an easy fight in his own backyard of Arkansas. To me, this would have been the greatest disappointment of all. It would have been another respectable man looking for easy title defenses and trying to prolong his career and title reign for the dollars and cents. It would have dropped Taylor’s worth in my books. I knew he wouldn’t. True to form, Taylor took the next biggest challenger around in Ronald “Winky” Wright. I picked Taylor prefight to win, and on my scorecard, he did. However, controversy again strikes him and the public is once again divided regarding who was the real winner. Yet again, Taylor’s performance and willingness to fight into the Championship Rounds, where heart is shown, becomes obvious to me. Winky tried to take the twelfth round off and it cost him on the judge’s scorecards. Again, Taylor isn’t raised up, and attention is drawn from the fact that he just took on one of the top pound for pound fighters (yet again) and pushed it to the end.
Now we have word that Taylor will be taking on Kassim “The Dream” Ouma. Ouma is a top ranked fighter and certainly no slouch. Taylor still hasn’t taken any easy title defenses and continues to produce on the highest platform.
The idea I’m trying to convey here is that Taylor is a throwback fighter with a heart of gold and a fist of granite. He doesn’t trash talk like a street thug and he always gives credit where it’s due. He admits he has a lot to learn, still, and he goes to the gym to do it. He always comes to fight. He doesn’t try to run purse bids up to duck any of his challengers. He doesn’t complain. He’s representing the Middleweight Division, historically one of the strongest divisions, with class and style.
Lets start giving the man his respect.
You can reach me at Marnoff@hotmail.com.