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Emanuel Steward kept reiterating one point in the days leading up to last Saturday night's showdown between undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor and the Ozzie Smith of defensive fighting, Winky Wright, at Memphis' FedEx Forum. He kept cautioning people not to expect too many changes in Taylor just because he was now training the young champion.
Emanuel Steward didn't know how right he would be.
After two razor-thin victories over Bernard Hopkins lifted Taylor's record to an unblemished 25-0 and left him the undisputed middleweight champion of the world, Ozell Nelson, Taylor's amateur trainer and surrogate father, urged him to drop Pat Burns, the only professional trainer he'd known, in favor of Steward. Nelson and Burns clashed often but he argued it was more than a personality problem between them. He convinced Taylor that he was no longer progressing as a fighter and needed the Hall of Fame trainer from Detroit in his corner to come up with fight strategy and to iron out the obvious defensive lapses he still suffered from.
Taylor balked at first but ultimately agreed and Burns remained home in Miami while Taylor went to Detroit to work with Steward in the basement of the legendary Kronk Gym. When he emerged Saturday night in Memphis, Taylor was confident he was an improved fighter now capable, as he put it, of taking the jab away from the best jabber in the division and cracking open the defenses of the Fort Knox of boxing, Winky Wright. [details]
Emanuel Steward didn't know how right he would be.
After two razor-thin victories over Bernard Hopkins lifted Taylor's record to an unblemished 25-0 and left him the undisputed middleweight champion of the world, Ozell Nelson, Taylor's amateur trainer and surrogate father, urged him to drop Pat Burns, the only professional trainer he'd known, in favor of Steward. Nelson and Burns clashed often but he argued it was more than a personality problem between them. He convinced Taylor that he was no longer progressing as a fighter and needed the Hall of Fame trainer from Detroit in his corner to come up with fight strategy and to iron out the obvious defensive lapses he still suffered from.
Taylor balked at first but ultimately agreed and Burns remained home in Miami while Taylor went to Detroit to work with Steward in the basement of the legendary Kronk Gym. When he emerged Saturday night in Memphis, Taylor was confident he was an improved fighter now capable, as he put it, of taking the jab away from the best jabber in the division and cracking open the defenses of the Fort Knox of boxing, Winky Wright. [details]
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