By Ron Borges

There are two ways to look at the future of Jermain Taylor and they,like too many things in boxing, depend on your perspective.

If you are his employee and your job is to advise him, you gently counsel the young middleweight champion to stay as far away from Winky Wright as humanly possible unless both he and Wright are wearing tuxedos.

If you are a fight fan, casino operator or television executive however, you urge him vehemently to get in the ring with Wright by next spring to settle the issue of who is the best middleweight in the world because that issue is anything but settled after Taylor's second consecutive less-than-inspiring win over finally aging Bernard Hopkins.

If there is a third option only Taylor's closest advisors know what it is. They can talk all they want about a homecoming fight of a sort for Taylor back in Little Rock but he can't go there to fight one of his mandatories because Wright holds that position in both the WBA and the WBC ratings and soon will very likely be the IBF's No. 1 contender as well after disposing of Sam Soliman Dec. 10 on HBO.

To his credit, Taylor has now faced the 40-year-old Hopkins in back-to-back fights over the past five months. That in itself deserves your respect. But what he did with Hopkins has only left him more suspect than he was going into their first fight five months ago because Taylor remains seriously flawed technically and still a somewhat daunted warrior when things get hot.

That Hopkins was unable to heat up the cauldron around Taylor on Dec. 3 was more a result of the calendar finally walking Hopkins down the way it does all great fighters than anything young Taylor had to say about it. In fact, the promotion was entitled "No Respct'' but it should have been called "Nothing But Respect,'' because that's all they showed each other.

Too much respect if you were hoping for a fight to break out between poses.

Both men were reluctant to let their hands go, Hopkins waiting, waiting, waiting to counter Taylor, knowing you can't counter someone who refuses to punch. For the most part that was the approach Taylor took. Perhaps too fixated on not burning himself out early as he did in their first fight, which ended with Taylor being awarded a controversial split decision victory after fading so badly he seemed in danger of being stopped, the new champion seldom landed his long, left jab, which is his best weapon, because he didn't want to be countered by Hopkins.

 

He still got hit with the same lead rights Hopkins hurt him with in the first fight as well, although this time they didn't do as much damage. Still the fact that a guy can have 25 professional fights, wear an undisputed champion's title belt and still get hit with lead right hands like he was an amateur in the Golden Gloves calls much of what Taylor has done into question.

Carefully managed, Taylor has spent most of his career facing undersized guys or aging guys and he has seldom looked like a bold warrior even then. He refused to push himself forward and take out William Joppy, the old champion who was badly worn down and there for the taking when they met. Against Hopkins, he was so cautious in the rematch there were many rounds that could have been fairly scored 9-9 if the rules allowed because no one won them.

In their first fight Hopkins seemed to do enough to win but the decision went to the younger man even though that man ended up in the hospital with a concussion, deep gash on his head and a badly swollen cheek and jaw while Hopkins went to the after party none-the-worse for wear.  In the rematch, Hopkins did little and Taylor seemed glad of it, seldom challenging him to step up the pace and quite often willingly engaging in clinches. In the end, Taylor won the decision but he didn't win the hearts or minds of fight fans, who now are clamoring for Taylor to face the 34-year-old former junior middleweight champion who will make his middleweight debut vs. Solimon Saturday night.

While Taylor's handlers say he deserves a less challenging opponent after facing Hopkins in consecutive fights, Wright points out that his last three fights have been back-to-back-to-back wins over Shane Mosley (twice) and Felix Trinidad. Wright was dominant in the first fight with Mosley and equally convincing in the second, except in the rounds he chose to take off. As for Trinidad, he persuaded him to return to retirement by the time he was through with him, which is all you need to know about the one-sidedness of that match.

Yet he is only taking on Solimon because a far more significant fight with Floyd Mayweather, Jr. fell through and he could not make a title fight with Taylor because of his rematch obligations with Hopkins. But Wright is ready to square off with Taylor at any time and made that clear this week.

"I'm here to fight the best in the world,'' Wright said. "I understand that winning as easily as I did against Mosley and Trinidad some people thing has hurt me. I say yes and no. Obviously other fighters don't want to fight me. That's nothing new. But because of the way I beat those guys so easily the fans want to see the real (champion). After a while fans don't want to keep buying things they really don't want to see."

"For me, all that talk about who's the best pound-for-pound or even who's the best middleweight doesn't bother me. I know I'm one of the best fighters in the world. That's good enough for me. I have nothing bad to say about Jermain or Bernard. It wasn't a great fight but Jermain won again. If he wants to fight me he'll fight me. If he doesn't I'll have to move on but I never was afraid to fight anyone. When I was coming up and Terry Norris was champion I wanted to fight him. I wanted to be the best."

"In this game, somebody wins and somebody loses but if you fight the best people the fans will appreciate it. If you take fights to dodge this person or that person the fans will see that, too. I've had over 50 fights. I want to fight the best out there.''

Taylor has said he feels the same way, saying four days before the rematch with Hopkins that, "I'd be glad to fight Winky. I'm the type of fighter, I want to know who's the best.'' But if that's the case then why are his handlers talking about his next fight being on regular HBO against someone less formidable than Wright? Maybe because they're smarter than Mosley and his wife, who chose to run right back into a rematch with Wright after being destroyed by him in their first fight and got beat up again.

Whatever the real reason, Taylor's handlers spoke of not wanting to send Taylor back into another tough training camp to prepare for someone like Wright so quickly even though the champion is 27 years old and coming off a rematch in which Hopkins did little damage to him. In contrast, Wright is 34 and fought Mosley back-to-back and then went right to Trinidad. So what's the holdup?

To be honest, one thing might be that Taylor simply is not ready for as skilled a fighter as Wright, who is one of the best defensive fighters in the game and someone who is becoming more offensive at the same time.

While Taylor still has serious flaws in his boxing style, Wright has a cast-iron defense, stiff jab, difficult southpaw stance and a proven trackrecord of excellence under pressure. Considering that, one can see why Taylor might choose to avoid him. But that won't sell with fight fans and it would diminish any claim he has to being the best middleweight in the world today.

"I want everybody to understand that Bernard Hopkins tonight, being one month shy of 41, put on a twelve round exhibition,'' Hopkins said after losing to Taylor last weekend by one round on all three judges' cards. "I don't have to be ashamed of what happened tonight. I think that I did enough to prove that I'm still the champion. Jermain Taylor proved that he can put on a lion-like performance but there are champions and there are people's champions."

"Right now Taylor is probably the best middleweight but will Jermain Taylor do for the next ten or so years what I did? I don't think you or I will be alive if that ever happens again, and that is nothing against Jermain, but we're talking about ten plus years, twenty plus defenses. I don't think that anyone will ever pass my record in my lifetime.''

Hopkins made no direct remarks about Wright and neither did Taylor but the simple fact is this - until Jermain Taylor faces down Wright he will never be considered the undisputed middleweight champion regardless of how many times RING magazine says he is. Unlike most of the titles in boxing, that is one that can only be decided in the ring. Sooner than he would like, although perhaps not as soon as he should, Jermain Taylor will have to put himself in that position. He'll have to put himself in with Winky Wright, ready or not, to decide who the rightful heir to Bernard Hopkins really is because as of today nobody really knows.