WILL TAYLOR’S LUCK BE BETTER THE SECOND TIME AROUND?
By Charles Jay
On Saturday night (February 16) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Jermain Taylor will get his chance for revenge when he fights his rematch with current middleweight champ Kelly Pavlik in a fight that is scheduled for twelve rounds in the super middleweight division.
BetUS boxing betting odds:
Super Middleweights
February 16 — Las Vegas
KELLY PAVLIK -160
JERMAIN TAYLOR +130
UNDER 10.5 ROUNDS -180
OVER 10.5 ROUNDS +140
For betting purposes, let’s size up the contestants:
PAVLIK (32-0, 29 KO’s), the -160 (5/8) favorite in the BetUS boxing betting odds, is the former national Golden Gloves and PAL champion, and undefeated middleweight, who got a lot of endorsements for fighter of the year in 2007 (though one would have to look past Floyd Mayweather’s wins over Oscar De La Hoya and Ricky Hatton to give him that distinction). He was pretty carefully handled until meeting up with Edison Miranda, who had gotten a fearsome reputation, in May of last year. But Pavlik walked in, took Miranda’s heart away very early, and wound up stopping the Columbian. In his middleweight title fight against Taylor, which took place last September 29, he was down (and looked like he might be out) in the second round but got back up to pin and exhausted Taylor in the corner and land the decisive blows, with referee Steve Smoger calling things to a halt at 2:14 of the seventh stanza. At 6′2-1/2″, he has the kind of dimensions that negate any natural size advantage Taylor might have had against other opponents.
TAYLOR (27-1-1, 17 KO’s), the +130 underdog at BetUS, is the 2000 Olympian who essentially made his reputation with two wins over Bernard Hopkins, each of which were close on the scorecards. When Taylor won the middleweight title from Hopkins in July of 2005, he won on two scorecards and lost on the other, giving Hopkins an opening to create a ‘controversy” that didn’t really exist. In the rematch, Taylor won all three cards by 115-113 scores. He started out strong against Pavlik, and indeed looked like he was ready to close the show after having the challenger on the deck and hurting in the second round, but he let Pavlik back into the fight, and ran out of gas in the seventh.
Like a lot of guys who lose a big fight, Taylor blamed his defeat in part on having to make 160 pounds. There was little doubt that the 6′1″ Taylor was going to move up to 168 at some point in the near future, and maybe this was foreseen when a rematch clause was built into the contract, with the provision that such a rematch could be at 168 pounds. Well, here it comes to fruition.
I’m sure that Taylor could feel very comfortable at the super middleweight level, and in time could fill out to a light heavyweight. But Pavlik has the frame to carry it as well, so I don’t necessarily see any advantage there for Taylor.
The one thing that I see as a decisive factor in this fight, as it was in the first one, is that Taylor’s stamina is a problem. In fact, it has been for most of his career. If you rcecall, he faded against Hopkins the first time around, and Hopkins didn’t push him enough in the rematch. Against Pavlik Taylor was spent when he was knocked out. In spending a lot of years in this game, I have found that it’s not necessarily a matter of being in shape or not, or being at the right weight; some fighters have natural stamina and some do not. Some admit it and some do not. I remember listening to Tommy Morrison’s trainer talk about his fighter about 15 years ago. He knew Morrison did not have a lot of staying power, and simply tried to devise a game plan that took that fact into account.
I don’t know that Taylor is doing the same thing, because such a strategy would entail throwing caution to the winds and looking to get the opponent out of there early, not pacing oneself to go the distance. Because when you do that, you might accomplish going the distance, but often that’s about ALL you’ll accomplish.
Either way, I have witnessed Pavlik’s recuperative powers and sense that can probably weather whatever Taylor throws at him. As for Taylor, I would still have my doubts as to his chin, his sturdiness under pressure, and of course, the ability to go a strong 12 rounds. Because if I am right, Pavlik is going to make him work for every minute of every round. And he’ll bring a jab, which for a guy like Taylor, who is used to having a height and reach advantage, that’s like taking something right out of his arsenal.
So I’m going with Kelly Pavlik to win this fight, and I think I’m getting a pretty good price, at -160 in the BetUS boxing betting odds.
JAY’S PLAY: PAVLIK TO WIN (-160) ***
(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)
