Jermain Taylor is 28-4, the former undisputed middleweight champion and undoubtedly one of the top super middleweight fighters in the world. But we may have seen the end of his impressive, albeit short fighting career last night in Berlin. Fighting Arthur Abraham in the 1st round of the Super Six Super Middleweight Tournament - a terrific idea, by the way - the man known as "Bad Intentions" took a knockout blow that delivered bad intentions for the 3rd time in the last two years.
The first loss of his career came at the hands of Kelly Pavlik, a war that ended when a flurry in the corner put Taylor down and out in the 7th round to earn the win for Pavlik. After falling short in a competitive decision loss to Pavlik months later, Taylor moved up to 168, successfully defeating former super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy. The win earned him a match with undefeated WBC champion Carl Froch. And for the second time in his career, Taylor got knocked out, this time in the final seconds of the fight ahead on the judge's scorecards. It was bad, but not as bad as the blow delivered by Abraham last night, Taylor's first fight since the Froch debacle. Check it out below...
My question is what the hell was the referee looking at? It's obvious once he goes down that Taylor is out cold. Yet the referee looks like he counts all the way to 6 or 7. In fact you can see the ringside doctor starts easing his way in as soon as Taylor went down, and he's already at Taylor by the time the ref waves it off. Way to have a clue, pal. But what do you think...even though it was a competitive fight and Taylor is clearly still a factor in the division, that's three bad knockouts in 2 years. Should he look to hang em up?
-Bess
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