If Pavlik Is "average" Why Is There A Rematch Clause?

Hey guys,

I've been reading comments made by Taylor and Steward characterizing Pavlike as "average" and "ordinary", so my question is: why is there a rematch clause? Another question I have is, why do fighters label their opponents "average" or "overrated" when it will only diminish their accomplishment if and when they beat them? That is just plain stupid!! Even if you believed that, wouldn't it be advantagious to state the opposite so that you will get as much credit as possible after beating him? Who wants their own words to come back and bite them in the ass in regards to getting credit? Only a moron. I'm a huge Taylor fan, but he's not the brightest shirt in the drier as I like to say. I'm surprised at many of the comments that Steward has been making both on and off tv. I've lost more and more respect for him over the past few years. He's a great trainer, seems like a classy guy and he's good in the corner, but when he starts talking outside of that realm, he often says dumb and contradictory things. Your thoughts?

 

Dumb post. My point was that actions speak louder than words. The fact that there is a rematch clause in the contract speaks volumes of the respect that they have for Pavlik and that he is viewed as a legitamite threat. Do you think there was a rematch clause in the contracts for Spinks and Ouma?

 

This is my analysis of the fight:

My analysis of Taylor/Pavlik:

This fight is going to be very interesting and potentially exciting. The degree of action in this fight will be contingent upon how Taylor decides to fight. If Taylor holds a lot when Pavlik gets inside and close it could be boring, but if Taylor decides to go toe-to-toe it could be a great fight. They both have decent chins, but I think Pavlik’s chin is better. He took some really good shots from Miranda who can really punch. Taylor was hurt by Hopkins in their first fight at the end. One could argue that it was due to exhaustion, but Hopkins is not a big puncher and should not have been able to hurt even a tired Taylor. Sure he dropped Tarver, but that was a flash knockdown and Tarver didn’t see the punch coming. Again, Taylor’s chin is good, but not as good as Pavlik’s in my opinion.

Taylor can win this fight with his jab. He’s fighting a right handed fighter for the first time in 4 fights and this will make landing the jab a much easier task. His last few fights were again slick southpaws who due to geometry were very difficult to land the jab on (which is Taylor’s best weapon). Credit to Taylor for not losing any of those fights, and for taking on the very best available opposition ---he’s great for boxing. If Taylor fires enough jabs and is able to keep Pavlik off him and avoid getting hit with something big, he will win on points (probably 8 rounds to 4 or 7 rounds to 5).

For Pavlik to win this fight he needs to consistently jab his way in and land some hard punches to the head and body of Taylor. He needs to have a consistently high punch output and throw a profusion of punches for the whole 3 minutes forcing Taylor to throw punches and leave himself open. Taylor’s defense isn’t great, so Pavlik should be able to land on him IF he can find ways around Taylor’s amazing jab. That’s going to be his biggest obstacle ---Taylor’s jab. He needs to find ways to slip the jab and get Taylor into a slugging match and hope that he connects on some really good right hands (the body and head). Pavlik averages around 90 punches per round, and has very good stamina. He will need to be very busy to pull this one off. If he can get inside the jab, he has the power to take Taylor out.

Prediction:

This is a tough fight to predict because I can see it going either way. I sorta lean towards Taylor because of his jab and the level of opposition that he’s faced, but Pavlik is very strong, young, hungry, and also undefeated so that needs to be put into account. It’s either going to be Taylor by decision (7 rounds to 5 or 8 rounds to 4) or Pavlik by TKO. Because Taylor hasn’t had a knockout in a while and is finally facing a right hander, he will probably go for the knockout unless he gets hurt early. This gives Pavlik a great chance of winning. Very tough to predict this one.