I was at work Saturday evening with my cell phone in my pocket, and my sister calling me up and giving me the round by round. I just finally saw the fight tonight. I do not think it was an all time great middleweight fight; damn good, but not all time great. I am a huge Pavlik fan, and I've been telling everyone who would listen that Pav would be the next 160 pound champ. However, I do think JT exposed how raw and ragged Kelly still is. In spots Taylor made Kelly look terrible. He made Pav look clumsy and amateurish at times. Kelly and his team need to review the tape and carefully analyze what happened. In round two Kelly went down because he was backing straight back with his ****ing hands down! An elite level fighter can not afford to do that; NOT EVER! Also Kelly seemed very impatient, and like he had a hard time settling down and flowing into his rythym. Taylor looked good most of the time right up to the end except for carrying his left to low. I also think JT grossly underestimated Pavlik. He went in with absolutely the wrong fight plan. He should have been doing everything he could to box his way to a good decision. Instead he was trying to go heads up with the hardest hitting middleweight in the world. Dumb plan! Going into the 7th round I had it this way: KP: 10, 8, 10, 9, 9, 10 = 56 JT: 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9 = 58 There are a couple of rounds there that I would not argue over if someone saw them differently, but the 3 blind mice at ring side were just stupid. Evidently they had no idea how to give credit for effectiveness. Moreover, HBO completely missed calling the 0ne-two at center ring that was the beginning of the end. As far as I'm concerned Taylor has redeemed himself from his previous lack luster performances. He fought like a champion, and he did a very gracious post fight interview. I'm notting dissing Manny, but I do not think him and Taylor make a good team. Pavlik now has the burden of proving that he belongs where he is. He is only 25 years old. He is still learning his craft, but in order to fight succesfully at world championship level he is going to have to learn a lot, and learn it fast. I'm thinking that he can and will, but only time will tell. Boo
i think taylor will always have trouble with a big guy who throws a lot. Just too overwhelemed. For a while pavlik was cleanly outjabbing taylor aswell. Has anyone heard if taylor's taking the rematch?
I'm now starting to believe that many ragged on Taylor because they have such high expectations for anyone who is labeled "champion" and holds a belt; especially when the belt was taken by defeating a guy that defended it for such a long time. Like you say, the burden will now be on Pavlik. People will watch his every step and move and point out areas where he can improve and will knock him more as he acquires more attention and possibly hype.
From the fights I've seen, it just looked like Taylor's defense wasn't too good and he didn't seem to take hard punches too well. Bhop almost KOd him in the end of the first fight after all. Too bad I didn't go with this when I bet on JT....
You had the third round even? Geez what does Pavlik have to do to win a round, kill the guy? I dont think Pavlik looked amatuerish at all, he has a crazy workrate and when you have a guy that has such offense of course it takes away from the defense. Pavlik Killed Jermain end of story.
To begin with, I agree HBO missed the center ring combination which set up the coup de gras. That 1-2 sent Taylor immediately to the ropes. However, I had the fight scored as follows: Round 1: Havlik, 10/9. Round 2: Taylor, 10/8. Round 3: Havlik, 10/9. Round 4: Taylor 10/9. Round 5: Havlik 10/9. Round 6: Havlik 10/9. Round 7: TKO Havlik over Taylor. Score: 57-57 a draw through 6 rounds. I have waited a long time for Taylor to be exposed as nothing more than a very good middleweight hyped by promoters and the media as the next Carlos Monzon. Sorry. Personally I never had him winning either of the Hopkins fights, possibly drawing one of them. Neither did I have him beating Winky or drawing with Winky. Winky beat Taylor fair and square. All of Taylor's real middleweight fights have resulted in questionable decisions. The only definitive victories he has had in that division were against Kassim Ouma, a Junior middleweight and Cory Spinks, a blown-up welterweight that couldn't raise a pimple on a middleweights' butt. Shades of Michael Nunn and Marlon Starling. Taylors' defensive liabilities were exposed, his inability to handle a busy fighter with heavy hands was revealed and his chin has now been shown to be less than impervious to hard shots. Taylor is another Michael "Second To" Nunn, the creation of a cooperative effort of promotion and media. Just look at the judges cards from this fight! In what was probably an even fight at the end of the 6th round, the judges had Taylor ahead by 3 and 4 points! Many rounds in other Taylor fights have been miscalled, notably the 12th round of one of the Hopkins fights, which made the difference between a Hopkins loss and a draw. Taylor was being gifted as usual and Havlik probably knew he could never win a decision under the (corrupt) circumstances, so he focused on getting a knockout. Finally the Emperor has been shown to have no clothes and maybe we can get back to the business of winning the title by means of boxing instead of via the "media darling" route. A Pavlik/Hopkins fight makes sense as does a Wright/Havlik fight. Jermain can get his rematch after those bouts. By the way, the article summarizing the fight stated that Taylor had a rematch clause in his contract to fight for the title again. NOT SO! The rematch is slated for a weight ABOVE that of middleweight, i.e. Super Middleweight or Light-heavyweight, not for the Undisputed Middleweight Championship. Also, that article crowed about the wonders of Taylors' jab. Seems to me I saw Havlik landing jabs equal in quality and quantity to those of Taylor. I guess the author just wasn't looking when Havlik threw his jabs. Too bad. He missed a lot.
