Jermaine Taylor - Great dude, great fighter?

Taylor wasnt technically sound. Having a good jab doesnt make a good technically sound. Taylor was sloppy as hell.

 

he was a sound boxer. just didn't like getting sucked into someone else's fight.
anyone who beats bernard hopkins for his MW title is technicallly sound.

 

Taylor beat Hopkins simply by outhustling him. In both fights I thought B-Hop outboxed Taylor, JT simply edged it pretty much by wanting it more, and fighting harder. That and his handspeed troubled Hop some also.

When I think of someone who's technically sound, I think of a guy who throws accurate punches, has good footwork, can fight inside and out, and throws each punch correctly technique wise. Taylor never had any of those qualities.

I'd say his good qualities were that he had a good jab, good right hand, good handspeed, and alot of heart.

His weaknesses were his underdeveloped skills, his TERRIBLE finishing ability, his poor stamina, his average defense, his mediocre chin, and above all... very low ring IQ.

 

I thought B-Hop beat Taylor twice too. Taylor had a good jab but even he admitted to not using it enough so that's another weakness of his too.

 

a big part of taylor's achilles heel was offset by hopkins though.

hopkins was tentative and came on too late in both fights. taylor only won because of the point of hopkins' career he fought him.

the hopkins that fought tito would have destroyed taylor in either stance.

i agree with a lot of what you say, but the irony is that we didn't know his glaring weaknesses until he fought world level punchers like pavlik and froch.

 

Here we can fully agree. The 2001 Hopkins would indeed have ****ed up Taylor.

BTW - not to toot my own horn, but I said even back then that Taylor would be exposed when he fought a puncher. I picked Pavlik to stop him in the 1st fight.

 

fair enough. i didn't
i remember getting flack at my gym saying that taylor could be the man to dethrone hopkins before they fought...in hindsight the flack looks justified now.

i'm still a big fan of taylor at the way he progreseed with his career, but i'm a bigger fan of bernard hopkins and the way he dismantled tito in that fight.

 

Your not the only one. I called Taylor upsetting Hopkins in the first fight, and was very proud of myself when I got it right. I wont lie though... I was wrong about the rematch. I thought Hopkins would stop him the 2nd time around.

 

well that comes full circle , doesnt it?
hopkins was electric from the first round against tito..but in both fights against taylor he left it too late.

 

Pat Burns took Jermain to the very pinnacle of the greatest sport in the world. After that Ozell Nelson made an ego driven power grab, and it caused problems between him and Burns. They fired Burns, and brought in Emmanuel Steward. That decision proved disastrous. I will go to my grave beleiving that Steward's dismissive attitude toward Kelly Pavlik cost Jermain the middleweight championship of the world, and shortened his career dramatically. If you doubt me, go back and listen to the utter nonsense that came out of Steward's mouth between rounds during the first Pavlik/Taylor fight.

 

Taylor did not have poor ring IQ. It seems pretty clear to me that he simply didn't maintain the work ethic once he left Pat Burns. Froch has proven over the course of his last couple fights that he can box a little bit, and Taylor was on cruise control against that guy until he ran out of gas again, and that was simply from not training properly, especially for a guy that had a history of fading.
You don't fight Hopkins that close twice (whether he won or not) by not knowing how to box and being technically poor. He simply didn't train.

And I agree about prime for prime. Hopkins is an ATG, Taylor is not. Prime for prime Hops would've wore him out.

 

Good fighter, but had a few glaring deficiencies that prevented him from being a great fighter.

He does comes across as one of the good guys in boxing, tho. The direction his career has gone is pretty sad to see, especially cos he seems like a genuinely nice guy, but then I suppose most fighters would kill to have the career he's had.

 

I don't know if I'd call any career that made someone a multi-gazillionaire by age 30 a sad one. He still has his senses intact, and he doesn't seem like the type to end up broke and have to come back and get his brains beat out.

 

Considering How he put Froch down and made him look like a complete amature for 10 rounds is a feat not acomplished by fighters thought to be better than him is looking good right now. Pascal who just beat a LT HW Dawson couln't do that. I think JT gets underrated because of his KO losses..........in which his brain was no longer able to handle punches anymore. And a great guy with alot of character.

 

Only Calzaghe, a much bigger man was able to beat B-Hop close when Hops was older..............it has to be taken into consideration that JT fought him to a standstill TWICE.........