Jermain Taylor is back and there’s nothing anyone can say that will change that fact.
After two tough losses to Kelly Pavlik, many questioned whether Taylor’s career had peaked at the age of 30 and whether a man who was among the best pound-for-pound still had “it.” Last Saturday night, his dominating decision win over Jeff Lacy proved that Pavlik was a bump in the road for the Arkansas native.
In a fight where Taylor landed almost 150 more punches, 60 more power punches, and outjabbed his friend and former Olympic teammate 107-29, Taylor looked unbeatable for all but one round.
That one round was the fifth round where Lacy was denied a knockdown and thus a 10-8 round and had to settle for a 10-9 round that he dominated showing a fire that he would not have at any point before or after on this night. The knockdown in question came on a punch that grazed Taylor’s shoulder, but did hit him in the ear causing Taylor to step back and fall to the canvas. The referee and Taylor would later say it was a slip, but slow motion instant replays showed to my satisfaction and those watching that it was an obvious knockdown.
The “knockdown” would’ve only given Lacy one thing to celebrate as this fight was all about Taylor working the jab beautifully for twelve rounds while landing some truly devastating combinations that put emphasis on Lacy’s heart and tolerance for pain.
Taylor had Lacy on rubber legs in the third round after a brutal right uppercut/left hook combination and only grabbing onto Taylor stopped Lacy from hitting the canvas in the fourth round.
This was a fight that had its similarities to the Jones/Calzaghe fight the week before. It featured two mismatched fighters in terms of skill, but not in terms of record as Lacy’s only loss prior to this fight was at the hands of Joe Calzaghe in England in 2006. And it also had one fighter dominating the fight throughout with the other getting one round that they dominated.
The only drawback to this performance for Jermain Taylor was the volume of holding and clenching onto Lacy primarily late into the fight. The question became whether this was more technique or more about his conditioning. There could be a case for both as it did frustrate Lacy and possibly throw him off his game more than he already was. However, Taylor’s volume of punches began to wane in the later rounds and he didn’t have the fluidity of motion that allowed him to dance all over the ring on Lacy in the first half of the fight.
Whether he wasn’t in the best shape in terms of conditioning or it was to slow down the fight and keep Lacy from launching a comeback, it didn’t prove to be a negative for Taylor as his debut at super middleweight was a success and a possible move up to light heavyweight for a fight with Joe Calzaghe now is a question that needs to be answered. That and a possible dream match with Roy Jones could be up in the air as well.
In the end, the world is Jermain Taylor’s once again after a year that saw him lose twice to the same man. But the skeptics and critics have been shut down and any question of whether Taylor’s career can continue in a serious fashion seems to have been answered.
Taylor 10 10 10 10 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 119
Lacy 9 9 9 9 10 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 109
