Lecester Jermain Taylor vs. Félix Juan Trinidad García

As per the Classic thread.

12 rounds at 160 pounds.

 

Elite based on what, though?

Granted, losing to B-Hop and Winky don't hurt you legacy wise. No shame in either of those, particularly with both in their own ways being defensive masters (cagey movement for one and the famous high guard for the other) and that being poisonous to a boxer-puncher such as Tito was, emphasis on the latter part.

But we're left thin on quality in the victory column. You've got Joppy, Cherifi and Mayorga. Well and good, none of them bums - just, not really the stuff of "elite" foundations. So, with a hard cap the sum quality of his opponents, you need to rely heavily on his form versus all of them. All three were fine performances, and Joppy in particular made him look superhuman, but is that enough to go by to speculatively admit him into the middleweight elite? I'm not sure.

 

Judging the chin of Taylor is a weird exercise IMO. Like yes we have all that enduring imagery of him getting wrecked thrice over, but always deep into wars against heavy-hitting guys and just one instance took place at middleweight. Tito definitely carried the bulk of his welter power up with him, but was it on par with a Pavlik's? That's a hard call. Abraham, Pavlik and Froch might all be lesser punchers in a p4p sense than welterweight Tito (in fact, I'd say that was so with confidence) but they're naturally much bigger. I'd say all three were in truth natural 168lbers (although in the case of Abraham, that's strictly referring to his frame and power base; he mostly looked pedestrian upon moving up...)

Preponderance of evidence does tell us that when he got tired Jermain's resistance certainly took a nose-dive, so if Tito could bait him into a brawl and gradually sap his stamina I'm totally onboard with the idea of the Puerto Rican maybe getting his late stoppage.

 

I still can't believe we never got Taylor vs. Miranda, which seemed like destiny written in the stars for a time (and quite apparently in the HBO execs' opinion) - neither when their names were first conjoined while both in the middleweight championship scene, nor a few years later when JT was in the Super-Six and Pantera was also campaigning at SMW.

I feel like if they'd fought there would have been a zero-sum effect; if the boxer (Taylor) won, then his own stock and historical standing would go up with a sense of having legitimized himself after the sketchy Hopkins decisions by withstanding a knockout artist, while the Colombian's stock would plummet. OTOH, if Miranda sparked him then it automatically becomes his #1 achievement with a bullet (flying clear past Allan Green) and depreciates perception of JT even more than his other kayo losses have.

And either outcome likely could've happened.

 

Oh and to nip this branch of thought in the bud preemptively - RJJ vs. Tito is by no means instructive here, lest anyone bring it up. True, it hadn't even yet been three full years since the loss to Wright, but absolutely nobody was optimistic about Tito's chances heading in and prevailing opinion was that RJJ was past his absolute best and coming off a recent bumpy skid, but in no way shot himself. That was a pure cash grab in which Tito took on a fellow (and generally much higher ranked) ATG while faced with every possible disadvantage: smaller, rustier, slower, further gone from his peak ability...

I'm frankly shocked to see the array of judges' official scores being even as close as 117-109 and 116-109 x2. I recall it being every bit the one-sided humiliation boricua fans had feared it might be.

We can therefore charitably omit anything pertaining to his performance in that one from the analysis here. Along with Taylor's latter-career second run at MW, after his ill-advised return* from his initial retirement due to neurological issues.

*ill-advised per most observers, although it did net him another championship in the books.

 

My initial thoughts from the original thread, if anybody's too lazy to click over :