How did this fight affect your opinion of Taylor?

I agree to an extent. He has tools but it seems that for some reason, he makes too many mistakes that a fighter with his experience shouldnt be making. THese are mistakes that him and his camp openly talked about working out in the gym and training in the pocanos, etc. So it seems that he is aware of what things he needs to work on but he keeps making those mistakes. Something I did see improve was that he was a little bit more aware of his where abouts in the ring and would get out of the ropes a bit quicker. However, he still made the mistake of letting him get guided to the ropes by Pavlik.

I think that his decisions or instincts in the ring are sometimes off and which ultimately cost him the fight. After getting hit with a huge right hand, you should either take a knee if you are that badly hurt to gain some time, or clinch like crazy and get close, not go back to the ropes.

I think that because he has won his previous bouts by his athletic abilities, hard determination & heart, he has been able to get away with those mistakes, he has developed some really bad habits because of it which he previously did not have to pay for. With this fight & loss on his record, this is a wake up call and reality check that states that he needs to really iron out some of these mistakes & bad habits if he wants to compete at the championship level and fight everyone out there & succeed.--big guys, fast guys, slick guys, etc.

One other thing, I am starting to believe that Manny Steward may not be the best coach for Jermaine. For some reason, I dont know if its Manny or Jermaines strategy, but he needs to stop letting the other get off first. It reminds me of when De La Hoya went to train with Mayweather Sr. He looked, IMO, worse throughout the time with Mayweather SR than with any of his other trainers.
If you look at Taylor in his younger years, he didn't have some of the bad habits he has now, and it appears that his work with Emmanuel isn't working. For some reason, it seems like Emmanuel is not able to bring out the best in Taylor or maybe simply not catch his attention, and there may be another coach better suited for that.

 

he also proved he can't think or adapt in the ring, and that he has one of the worst "champion" guards i've ever seen. he should have slowed the pace down a bit and use his legs during 6 and 7 then picked it up 8, 9, 10, back off 11, and burn it in 12.

oh and he has next to zero lateral movement.

 

Yeah thats what i was saying that it seems he lack some of those natural instincs that champions have shown to have in the past.

 

You make a good point with the bad habits. The thing is this...when you're able to get by on athleticism for so long you eventually find yourself needing the intangibles that a professional must have and they're just not there. I always felt that Taylor was skating by because of his talent. He didn't have that much of an education prior to Hopkins. He was fed a bunch of stiffs who didn't challenge him. Limited come-forward fighters like Bunema and Edouard and a completely shot William Joppy were of no help to his development. After Hopkins he was gonna be in with a bunch of different styles that demanded more than athleticism. If being an athlete won fights there would be about 100 champions per division.

 

He is simply not a very clever fighter imho, he has some tools, but doesn't use them very well.

A coach can only advise and try to train with a guy, but if he keeps failing doing what you want him to do, maybe it beyond him to change it. Furthermore, he seems to degress rather than anything else - I seriously think that on top of a limited talent, he has some mentality issues. I even saw it in the prefight show, where he didn't seem to take Pavlik serious.

 

I think he was trying to talk like an elite fighter who just had a couple bad nights at the office when in fact he knew that he was an elite fighter who was ready for a fall. He talked badly of Pavlik because of insecurity. A guy who knows he's gonna go out and win convincingly doesn't need to bash the opponent. He just goes out and does it.

 

It didn't at all.