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FROCH VS. TAYLOR:
Hindsight leads to 2nd guessing
BY CHRIS GIVENS
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, April 27, 2009
MASHANTUCKET, Conn. — Lou DiBella, Jermain Taylor’s promoter, got a call from Showtime senior vice president Ken Hershman in the moments after the frenzied and shocking end to Taylor’s world title fight with Carl Froch on Saturday night.
“Hershman said he would buy a rematch to that fight whenever it’s made,” DiBella said. “It was such a compelling fight, such a dramatic fight, and what a dramatic ending. I don’t think there is a TV executive alive who wouldn’t want that fight again.”
Television, and Taylor, might want a rematch, but both will likely have to wait a while, if not forever. Froch successfully defended his WBC super middleweight title when he knocked out Taylor in stunning fashion with 14 seconds remaining in the 12th and final round.
Those involved in the camps of both fighters agreed that if a rematch does happen, it won’t be the next fight for either boxer. And it might have to take place in England, Froch’s home country.
Little Rock’s Taylor limited his career options and leverage with the loss, but DiBella said Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KOs) likely will fight again in September. He didn’t speculate on a possible opponent.
DiBella did allow his mind to wander to a myriad of what might-have-been scenarios in that fateful, final round.
Taylor, DiBella and Taylor’s trainer, Ozell Nelson, all agree on what would have been the best scenario under the circumstances in the final 20 seconds of the 12th round - a knee, a clinch, a world championship.
Taylor was ahead on two judges’ scorecards in the 12th round, and the only way he could lose was if he were to get knocked out. Survive the round, and he wins a second world championship.
I thought I was up in the fight,” Taylor said. “In the later rounds he was throwing more, but I was catching a lot of them. But I went to the corner and they said I was losing, so I started brawling with him a little bit and got caught with some dumb stuff.”
Taylor was knocked down midway through that final round, and was shaky on his feet the rest of the way.
With 20 seconds left in the fight, Froch battered Taylor against the ropes and began alternating left and right hands at will. Froch wasn’t going to knock Taylor down; the ropes to Taylor’s back were holding up the former middleweight world champion.
But if a fighter takes a knee on his own volition it is scored a knockdown and the referee is required to give an eight-second count, while the round clock keeps ticking. There would only be a few seconds left when action resumed, and a quick clinch by Taylor would have ended the fight.
Instead, the fight was stopped (with no complaints from either side) with 14 seconds remaining.
It was impossible to know - at the time - how the judges were scoring the fight. Taylor, after a dominating start, had been visibly slowing in the final rounds, while Froch was getting stronger and stealing rounds. So, rather than tell Taylor to stay out of harm’s way in the final round, Nelson instructed Taylor to keep boxing.
“I told him you need the last two rounds,” Nelson said. “I didn’t want him to give the last two rounds up. I take the blameon the way he thought and how he fought [late]. I didn’t want him to go out and lose the next rounds, but keep boxing and turning. He just needed to throw more punches, pick it up. If I knew the scores the judges had, I’d have just said go out there and stay out of range.
“He fought his heart out the last two rounds, and just came up short.”
“I thought I had to fight,” Taylor said. “I thought I had to win those last rounds. That’s why I fought. I thought I had to do what I do. I was up on the cards, I heard later.”
The strategy in the latter stages of the fight will be debated, but there is no question that Taylor was winning the early part of the contest and looked stronger and smoother in the ring than in any fight since his second fight with Bernard Hopkins in December 2005. Many who have followed Taylor’s career believe that for 10 or 11 rounds, it was the best Jermain Taylor they had seen.
“Everything I was throwing, I was catching him with,” Taylor said. “It was in my mind I was boxing beautifully. Just keep moving and boxing, and I win the fight. Keep boxing and I can make this fight easy. He came back strong. He came on in the later rounds.”
Taylor showed enough skill and entertainment value to ensure he will continue to get television deals. It might be some time before he gets another title shot.
Knowledgeable observers ringside Saturday night agreed that Taylor is still one of the top boxers in the super middleweight division, despite losing three of his past four fights.
He was an agonizing 14 seconds from being considered the best.
“For 10 rounds I think you saw a superb Jermain Taylor,” DiBella said. “The man fought his heart out. And I think he showed why he’s one of the elite fighters in the world. I’d put him in with anyone in the [super middleweight] division. For Jermain, being active makes the difference. You can’t afford to disappear for eight months. We’ll take some time and then get right back in there. He belongs in with the top boxers of his division.”
This article was published Monday, April 27, 2009.
Sports, Pages 13, 15 on 04/27/2009
Froch’s flurry floors Taylor 14 ticks left as ref stops fight
BY CHRIS GIVENS
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE, April 26, 2009
MASHANTUCKET, Conn. — MJermain Taylor was 14 seconds away from a second world championship.
A fiercely determined Carl Froch would not let Taylor hear that final bell.
Froch retained his World Boxing Council super middleweight belt by stopping Little Rock’s Taylor in explosive fashion at 2:46 of the 12th and final round of their title fight Saturday night at the MGM Grand Theater at Foxwoods Resort Casino.
The technical knockout, which came after Taylor was knocked down earlier in the round, came with 14 seconds left in the fight. At the time, Taylor was ahead by four points on two of the three judges’ scorecards, which means that the only way Froch could have won the fight was with the knockout.
Taylor did not dispute the late stoppage by referee Michael Ortega.
“I don’t know if he made the right decision or not, but he is the referee and he thought heshould stop it and he stopped it,” Taylor said. “I take my hat off to the referee.
“[Yes], I want a rematch. [Froch] is a great fighter. I take my hat off to him. He came to fight.”
As the 12th round began, judge Jack Woodburn had the fight scored 106-102 for Froch, and judges Omar Minton and Nobuaki Uratani each had it 106-102 for Taylor. Even with the knockdown, Froch could not make up the difference on Minton and Uratani’s scorecards if Taylor (28-3-1, 17 KOs) escaped the round.
Several booming right hands from Nottingham, England’s Froch (25-0, 20 KOs) ensured the fight would not be decided by scorecards.
Taylor, who was fading in the late rounds after an impressive start to the fight that included his own knockdown, was caught flush with a right hand midway through the 12th. Another over-the-top right staggered, then knocked him down in the corner. The former middleweight champion regained his feet and went at Froch, but was never steady and had to clinch.
Froch pushed him off and began battering Taylor on the ropes with alternating left and right hands. Technique was not necessary; Froch merely whaled away at an unresponsive Taylor until Ortega stopped the fight.
“My main concern is the safety of fighters at all times, regardless of time,” Ortega said. “I don’t concentrate on time. Fourteen seconds, 10 seconds, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is for the fighters to go home safe and sound to their loved ones.
“I knew it was close to the end of the round, but [Taylor] wasn’t throwing anything back. I said ‘Enough is enough’ and hopefully he can come back another day.”
The fight was very reminiscent of Taylor’s first fight with Bernard Hopkins, when Taylor won the middleweight championship. Like that night, Taylor came out blazing from the start and was clearly the better fighter for the first six rounds.
Then, again like the Hopkins fight, Taylor appeared to run out of steam and his work rate suffered dramatically.
Taylor won the 12th round against Hopkins to win the title in a split decision.
Not this time.
“I was hoping my intuition was right and Jermain was tiring from the pressure I was putting on him,” Froch said. “[Ortega] did the right thing. [Taylor] was unable to defend himself. He wasn’t even looking when he got hit. He was badly hurt. I had free shots at him. I could have done anything I wanted. Great decision by the referee.”
Early in the fight, it was Taylor doing anything he wanted against the slower and less experienced Froch.
Taylor had a tactically perfect f irst round, snapping Froch’s head backward several times with jabs that continued to land through the first half of the fight. By the end of thefirst round, Froch’s nose and forehead were reddened.
Froch was knocked down for the first time in his professional career in the third round, when he was floored by two thudding right hands.
Taylor’s far superior hand speed was giving Froch a lot of trouble, especially on the counter punches.
“I was leaving myself open to counters, and against a tough fighter, if I leave myself open, he will capitalize, and he did,” Froch said. “I didn’t see the shots [that knocked me down] coming, to be honest. It was over the top. Then I knocked him out in the 12th. What more do you want?”
Taylor steadily threw fewer and fewer punches as the rounds wore on, and by the eighth, the momentum of the fight shifted to Froch, who was walking Taylor down.
Still, Taylor was landing the cleaner, harder punches, which clearly impressed the judges. Taylor also was blocking many of Froch’s wide punches, until the final round.
Taylor said he didn’t think stamina was a problem.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I trained my hardest. I put 110percent in. I stayed with it, and he just got it at the end.”
After the fight, Froch, predictably, called for his countryman Joe Calzaghe to come out of retirement to make a megafight for the title that Calzaghe vacated when he retired.
Taylor, aside from asking for a rematch, had no immediate comment on his future plans.
Plans that changed dramatically in 14 seconds.
Great Video!
Jermain vs. former Arkansas Razorbacks all conference wide receiver Anthony Lucas
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