What if Meldrick Taylor....

If the guy lasted just another handful of seconds vs Chavez we wouldn't be having this conversation. I reckon he made great use of the assets he had and only needed the smallest bit of luck to have made it huge. Heavens, he was competitively but undeniably outfighting the great Chavez and got within a bee's dick of taking him. If he got home he's stamped his place in history no matter what the outcome of a rematch.

Taylor was a very fine fighter. I can't see him any other way. It took a great like Chavez to halt his reign, and even that involved immense luck.

 

You make good points, i remember the Hooper fight.

 

One of the things that makes this difficult is that it's asking you to take a fighter and completely change him around. If he relied on his speed and defense more? He probably would've lasted longer but wouldn't have been as great as he was. He also probably loses a little bit in terms of star power. He probably survives against JCC but as we've seen before, sometimes being fast and defense oriented only meant losing a decision to JCC.

Personally I think it's almost impossible to really think about because his career felt like such a quick blur. It was oover almost as soon as it got started.

 

Along with Taylor's hand speed what was key to his success was his work rate and punch output.

Even if we assume that he could be a more defensive minded boxer, he'd probably be eating away at two of his strengths, work rate and punch output.

To me, it's not obvious that all he needed to do was be more cautious and he would have beat Chavez. If he didn't flurry like a madman Chavez would have kept on coming and unless Taylor had Whitaker like defense, he was going to meet a sorry end.

He never had, nor could he have developed that kind of defense.

 

I followed Meldrick closely. The Chavez fight could have been easier had he been able to accept that he was suffering damage inside with Chavez and his subtle chops inside that messed up Taylor's lip and eyes. Taylor swallowed about a pint of his own blood in that bout and it didn't happen suddenly... it was cumulative. Taylor could have and should have been more aware of what Chavez was doing in close and made the necessary adjustments to be more preventative. He had a bad habit of flurrying too long to impress judges -but meanwhile Chavez is connecting hard at the tail of them. There are many Philadelphia fighters who are aware of defense! And Meldrick -never the banger that he fought as if he was, didn't have to war so much. He had speed! Speed keeps you safe!

The other problem was moving him to welterweight. That was a critical error that ruined him as a fighter and probably ruined his health too. I always thought Duva and Benton were wrong for him.

 

Even if Taylor ran the last round vs Chavez, Taylor would still be damage goods imo. I mean Chavez just beat Taylor up, and badly. Way before the 12th round. Now I know the 12th round beating didnt help at all, but Taylor was all ready a beating man before that.

 

I know it is popular opinion that the Chavez fight ruined taylor and he was ever after damaged goods....But, IMO, he fought some great fights including beating the unbeaten Aaaron Davis (One of his best performances in my book), and had just come off of a solid win against Brown...I can't and don't believe he was damgaed goods (at least untill after Norris pounded him) prior to this...but excpecting him to beat a great LMW was asking to much of him. At this point he desperately wanted Chavez again but he was not willing (able) to move down and neither was Chavez willing to move up at this stage, so this was really the best chance he had at a major match.

 

You've got to imagine how hard he hit coke after he was emotionally crushed after the JCC loss.

The emotional stress, the amplified drug usage, the moving up in weight, brutal gym wars, trading way too much in the ring to begin with...

 

Don't be so disgusting. He'd have turned Chavez's (and almost everyone else's) brain into Swiss cheese if he'd had a big punch.

Sick, Mantequilla. SICK.