Jermain Taylor out of the Super Six
by Brickhaus on Jan 12, 2010 11:47 AM EST
in Boxing News Analysis
33 comments
It appears that Jermain Taylor will be taking a hiatus from boxing and dropping out of the Super Six Tournament. The following press release was sent out by Taylor's team:
LITTLE ROCK, January 12, 2010 - Jermain Taylor (28-4-1, 17KO's) former undisputed middleweight champion has made a decision regarding his future boxing career. Taylor, who was a participant in SHOWTIME Sports World Boxing Classic last fought on October 17th in a losing battle against Arthur Abraham in Berlin, Germany.I'm going to take some time off from the sport of boxing and take myself out of SHOWTIME Sports World Boxing Classic tournament. It's important that I give my body and mind some much needed rest, because I have been boxing for nearly 20 years," said Taylor. "I plan on keeping myself in shape and making a return to the sport sometime in the future. This was not an easy decision for me, having discuss it with my family, trainer, friends and my adviser Al Haymon, because I'm a very competitive person-but I know this is the smart road for me to take. I want to thank SHOWTIME Sports for everything and I wish the best for my 5 counterparts who will continue on in the Super Six tournament. Most of all, I want to thank the many fans for their continued support.
It's been a long time coming. He's lost three of his last five bouts by knockout, including two knockouts that literally came in the last minute. About a month ago, his promoter Lou DiBella publicly dropped Taylor from his promotional rolls, stating that he thinks Taylor should retire for health reasons and that he didn't want to support Taylor continuing to fight. Best of luck to Jermain, and here's to hoping you got out early enough to avoid any major problems down the road.
What does this mean for the Super Six Tournament? As reported by Dan Rafael last week, it appears that the winner of the upcoming fight between Allan Green and Sakio Bika will be Taylor's replacement. This probably also means that the fight between Andre Ward and that winner will have to be delayed, pushing back the timetable for the tournament to some extent. No matter whether Green or Bika is the replacement, either one should be more competitive than Taylor, who seemed to have more fire lately, but who seemed badly faded from where he was at his peak.
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Seems like a smart decision.
I wish him the best of luck. Who, if anyone, takes his place? I’d like to see LB.
Winner of the Sakio Bika-Allan Green fight
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
Showtime on February 5.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Jan 12, 2010 2:30 PM EST up reply actions
came up on New Year's Eve
http://www.badlefthook.com/2009/12/31/1227762/sakio-bika-allan-green-close-for
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Jan 12, 2010 2:30 PM EST up reply actions
He can fight Roberto Stigeaz for a unification.
"Boxing is dirty," said Casamayor. " The day I’m not ready to be a dirty fighter is the day I don’t fight anymore because it will mean that I have no heart for it anymore."
I don’t think Stieglitz (or actually his promoter, whoever it is) would do it. No incentive.
That’s why I was disappointed when Stieglitz-Miranda fell through. I thought Miranda had a shot to win that belt, and if he did, he most definitely would have agreed to a unification with Bute (which he would lose, probably in spectacular fashion).
Yeah… I so fucked up his name.
I remember a story on Yahoo on him after the fight and it was basically bashing him. You have one guy working at Jack in the Box and the other is a son of a surgeon. Who would you pick in a fight.
Anyways… I was just putting his name out there. He is actually a pretty credible guy and title holder. He has also shown that he is willing to come to the US to fight and with Bute being the draw that he is…I don’t think it is out of the question.
He can do the Sturm route and just fight in Germany but I don’t see him as that type. He has had the balls enough to fight Berrio and Andrade. Anyone who has those names in their resume deserves some respect.
"Boxing is dirty," said Casamayor. " The day I’m not ready to be a dirty fighter is the day I don’t fight anymore because it will mean that I have no heart for it anymore."
Universum fighter, unfortunately
Now that he has a belt, he’ll never leave Germany, and he’ll probably never face a live body who isn’t a mandatory or another Universum fighter.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
Yeah. The Berrio and Andrade fights were different because before he had a belt, his team had to take what they could get. It’s a different story now. Universum’s particularly bad, but even a better promoter would be unlikely to set anything up with Bute. There would be no money in it for them and no one would be forcing them to do it since Bute can’t be ranked in the WBO.
To be clear, I’m not doubting Stieglitz’s ballsiness. I just think that unless you’re a superstar, promoters tend to have a lot more control over this stuff than fighters do. For that matter, I don’t doubt Sturm’s ballsiness either. He’s been showing lately that he actually does have some competitive spirit. But he’s also showing that it’s pretty hard to go against your promoter and succeed, even if you want to.
The difference between Universum and other promoters
Is that with other promoters, if a fighter expresses dissatisfaction that the fights he’s getting aren’t tough enough, the promoter will usually try to make bigger and harder fights. With Universum, they’ve had lots of guys publicly complain about the matchmaking (Sturm, Erdei, Dzinziruk, etc.) and instead of actually making bigger and tougher matches, they just try to make it as difficult as possible for the fighter to become a free agent and leave the promoter, but still make easy fights. Palle jumps out at me as operating that way as well, although Palle is one step worse than Universum.
The thing that sucks too is that Universum generally is a really good promotional outfit, just their overprotection of fighters is borderline criminal.
Bad Left Hook - The SB Nation boxing blog
"Baseball is played on the field, not on a calculator."
It's only boxing
That’s a good move. No more pain. A very wise decision.
If you always thought what you thought, then you wouldn't think what you knew.
Taylor...
Was easily the worst fighter in this bunch. Just sucks because I’m a Ward fan and I’ve gotta wait even longer to see him fight again.
I think that "easily"
exaggerates his standing amongst those 6 boxers. He is still a very skilled guy and a tough fight for any of them.
"Honey i forgot to duck" - Jack Dempsey
by Drunken cutman on Jan 12, 2010 3:31 PM EST up reply actions
good for Jermain
He’s one of those guys I truly root for. Never really had a bad word to say about his opponents, took tough fights. My respect for him grew a ton when he immediately rematched Kelly Pavlik, because he didn’t have to do that. The rematch option was his, but he could have taken a bounce-back fight and didn’t. He made, IMO, some awful career decisions, but at least he sees that he needs a good rest at the very least.
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Jan 12, 2010 2:35 PM EST reply actions 1 recs
+1
I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘’Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'’ (Bernard Hopkins)
He is a guy who might not have boxing come naturally but damn, he accomplished a whole lot.
He was always a man’s man… and wish him the best. You just get the impression that the end of near for his boxing career.
"Boxing is dirty," said Casamayor. " The day I’m not ready to be a dirty fighter is the day I don’t fight anymore because it will mean that I have no heart for it anymore."
Wouldn't be shocking
if the rest morphs in retirement.
seems the likeliest outcome by far
although it does sound like he wants to come back in some capacity.
I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘’Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.'’ (Bernard Hopkins)
Not the most shocking news I’ve heard all day. The shame of it is, I really think he was mostly through the tourney’s prime plunking zone. For all the talk about him losing his punch resistance, we’re really talking about a guy who got suffocated from a succession of punches by a heavy handed, determined guy (Froch) and who got iced by a very strong puncher (Abraham), both with mere seconds to go in the fight. I didn’t think Ward was going to kayo him.
Still, it’s his decision and I’m sure it was an incredibly tough one to make. I wish him the best of luck to him and his family. And if we never see him fight in a ring again, his career isn’t anything to be ashamed of, controversial victories or not. He went very far.
"This fight'll be the nastiest thing you'll ever see. I been sober for six weeks, and that makes me vicious."
-- Randall 'Tex' Cobb
Good for Jermain. A sane sensible decision from a still relatively young boxer? Astonishing.
Tonight I’ll lift a drink to Jermain Taylor, a talented if flawed fighter and one of the genuinely likable and decent guys in the sport. You can make a pretty strong argument that Taylor has taken more tough fights recently than any other major boxer.
Boxing writer: "Iran, what are you going to do when you retire?"
Iran Barkley: "Rob your house"
You can make a pretty strong argument that Taylor has taken more tough fights recently than any other major boxer.
Yeah, exactly. It’s nothing new either. He’s been in with many tigers, including Hopkins twice and Winky once. And people forget that Pavlik-Miranda was an eliminator. If Pavlik had lost that one, Jermain would’ve have fought Miranda, and I’m pretty sure Taylor would have beaten Miranda widely.
"This fight'll be the nastiest thing you'll ever see. I been sober for six weeks, and that makes me vicious."
-- Randall 'Tex' Cobb
Yeah… one fight can change everything.
Just think if we had a different judge in germany instead of Neuman in the Miranda/Abraham fight.
Alot of careers would be radically different.
"Boxing is dirty," said Casamayor. " The day I’m not ready to be a dirty fighter is the day I don’t fight anymore because it will mean that I have no heart for it anymore."
Taylor-Miranda
One of my favorite recent “caught on TV” corner stories:
As we all know, on the same card as the Pavlik-Miranda eliminator, Taylor fought Cory Spinks. There had been talk of Jermain just fighting Edison Miranda after that geek Sergio Mora refused to fight Jermain in Memphis (which is what necessitated Taylor-Spinks) but they went with Spinks. After Pavlik had beaten the living crap out of Miranda, and Taylor was struggling with Spinks’ style and putting on a fight that was uglier than boiled sin, Manny Steward looked right at Jermain and said, “This is why I wanted you to fight Miranda.”
Bad Left Hook
"To the town of Agua Fria rode a stranger one fine day..."
by Scott Christ on Jan 13, 2010 3:16 AM EST up reply actions
Interesting
There is now a story about this on the bottom crawl of ESPN. Man I thought boxing was dead and would never recover from the Pac-May fiasco…..
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