Interesting matchup. These guys are very similar to me. They strike me as very good athletes who happened to box, but not necessarily great technicians. Well, I guess Tate was a pretty good technician, they both just seemed to be missing something (fluidity maybe). Anyway, I don't think Tate was such a superior technician that he'd completely outbox Taylor and I'd see Taylor's strength eventually coming in to play. I'll say Taylor takes a close decision. I'm working on memory here because I haven't seen a Tate fight in several years.
I think Tate had the better skills and superior jab\defence and would win a decision by about 4 points or so. One thing that strikes me about the two is howTaylor looked so bad against the smaller Spinks, where Tate just beat hte **** out of the similarly styled natural middleweight Olajide.He just had a bit more all around competence to him than Taylor imo. Taylor is one guy who Nunn would have absolutely destroyed as well.
The only fights that I've ever seen of Tate were losing efforts, so I don't know if my opinion is the best source to be asking here. I remember him being outboxed in one sided fashion by a forgotten middleweight named Lindell Holmes. That fight was around 1990, and I was working at a grocery store. I called in sick one afternoon and saw the fight on public TV. I should have gone to work instead. I also saw him lose to Virgil Hill and Michael Nunn. Personally, I think Tate had some decent skills but Taylor seems to be in a higher class.
I dont think Tate was ever again the same after losing to Nunn. Not only physically, but Nunn probably destroyed him mentally as well. See his fight with Olijide. He was impressive in that fight, and on that night might have beaten Taylor. Now granted Taylor is alot better than Olijide, but I think either way it woulda been a close fight.
Tatre is the better fighter.And he had some pop in his righthand.Tate would outbox Taylor and keep him honest with his righthand.I think Tate's problem was he didn't train hard enough..He had some good winss-Olajaide,Parker,Watts,Maynard,Grant, and such but he did seem to be missing that extra something.