By Anson Wainwright

Almost seven-years to the day Jermain Taylor lost his middleweight titles to Kelly Pavlik, he won back the IBF crown on Wednesday by outpointing Sam Soliman.

Taylor now 36, won by scores 116-109, 116-111 and 115-109.

 

Taylor’s trainer Pat Burns said of the fight: “I wanted Jermain to maintain his composure and try to catch Sam when he was coming in. In the end it turned out to be great.”

Soliman was down four times during the fight and clearly hurt his leg making it almost impossible for him to fight successfully with.

 

"In any other sport when you see him injured you would back off but in boxing obviously your objective is to try to get in and finish off your opponent," said Burns." Sam showed great courage and fought hard. Had he not hurt his knee it would have been a heck of a lot tougher. Unlucky for him, luck for us, but Sam’s a helluva fighter. Whatever he does in his life, if he boxes more he was a great reprehensive, the Australian should be very proud of him."

In the build up many questioned if Taylor (33-4-1, 20 knockouts) should even still be fighting much less be involved in a world title fight.

Taylor was vigorously tested and cleared to fight again, unperturbed by a brain bleed that had occurred five-years ago when he lost to Arthur Abraham in the ‘Super Six’ tournament.

“Oh no I’m not concerned at all," said Taylor, who estimates his weight had blown up to around 200-pounds at that time. "The Abraham fight I was in the sauna for eight, nine hours a day, doing things all wrong, I had no water in my brain, I had no water in my body period."

Taylor decided to carry on and has won all four of his bouts since, though admittedly at a lower level prior to beating Soliman two nights ago.

His trainer Pat Burns, who Taylor has never lost with in his corner. Initially wasn’t sure how shop worn Taylor was.

"I looked at his reflexes, how his hand speed was, if he really wanted to do it or if it was just his ego," said Burns, who‘s 30-0 with Taylor. "He convinced me he wanted to do it.

The reason Taylor is still boxing is simple.

“It’s probably because I can’t work on cars, I can’t fly a plane,” said Taylor. “I want to be middleweight champion of the world again. That’s my goal to be middleweight champion again. I’m not worried about nothing else.

Burns was very happy with how things have gone in camp.

"Jermain has trained extremely hard, we’ve been going at it for 10 weeks and this is the most focused I’ve seen him up to the Bernard Hopkins fight."

 

Now that things have gone full circle what Burns dares not think further than his flight home to Florida.

 

“We’re just going to take off and see what happens I don’t even want to think about it right now."

Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at elraincoat@live.co.uk and you can follow him at www.twitter.com/AnsonWainwright