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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. [details]
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. [details]