Jermain Taylor

It hurt watching Jermain Taylor get knocked out horridly this past Saturday, considering he’s been my favorite fighter since I saw him defeat Alex Bunema in March of ’04. I had just become a boxing fan, watching fights sporadically, though I was beginning to watch with increasing regularity. I was being introduced to the fighters quickly, along with their weight classes, their styles, their histories, etc. It wasn’t too long thereafter that I became a full-fledged die-hard fan of the sport. I fell in love with the drama; I had never before witnessed such a magnificent stage.

That night, over five years ago, I watched this fighter named Jermain Taylor put on a show. He was so calm, so graceful, so powerful. I was not yet able to identify technical flaws, or erroneous ring habits. And while currently I am nothing but an armchair Eddie Futch, I still am capable of recognizing the brilliance of a ring technician such as Bernard Hopkins versus the raw instinctual style of Jermain Taylor. But what can I say, that night he became my favorite fighter, and has remained so to this day.

Whenever he fights now, it is a huge event for me: months of anticipation culminate on the day with re-visiting past Taylor fights on DVD. This Saturday evening before the live fight, I watched two past fights: Taylor/Lacy (his most recent contest to that point), followed by the aforementioned bout, Taylor/Bunema. As I watched him pump his jab into Bunema’s grill, I had a realization: “Tonight, Jermain’s in trouble.” I had a sinking feeling right there that Taylor would somehow not walk out of the ring victorious. I could see so clearly that the Jermain Taylor of old had become a memory. Because the Taylor that fought Alex Bunema was the best he had to offer. I realized that the Jermain that I was watching on my DVD was better than any Jermain that I had seen in recent years. I didn’t know it before, because maybe I didn’t want to know it. Maybe every time he put on a disappointing performance since his debatable title fight with Hopkins, I found an excuse for him: his opponent ran all night, or Jermain was too eager to score a knockout, or Winky Wright will make anybody look bad, etc. These excuses started after his first fight with Bernard Hopkins. Hopkins has always said that he steals his opponents’ primes when they share a ring with him; he claims he ruins fighters on a single night. I never believed it, because I didn’t recognize it in Jermain. But I recognize it now that Taylor hasn’t been the same since the night he and Bernard mixed it up, July 16, 2005. And you know something? He’s right. They both were robbed that night: Hopkins had his title swindled, and as for Jermain Taylor, well, his prime was never to be seen again.