Seven years after his first reign, Jermain Taylor can again call himself a middleweight title-holder after dropping Sam Soliman four times and winning the IBF crown by unanimous decision (116-111, 115-109 and 116-109).
Was it an entertaining fight? Only if you like train wrecks? Has Jermain Taylor found a fountain of youth? Only if he gets to fight Soliman every time out. But the particulars don’t truly matter. Taylor has a belt, got paid an astounding $1 million dollars for last night’s effort, and as an Al Haymon client already has two fellow middleweights in his stable to face (Peter Quillin or Danny Jacobs).
MIDDLEWEIGHT WALKING WOUNDED: Although Soliman is 40 years old and absolutely reckless, I still didn’t foresee Taylor handling him so easily. Based on their recent fights and how they looked, I was certain Soliman would be able to overwhelm Taylor much like he did Felix Sturm in two outings. Taylor who started taking over in the seventh with a right hand that scored a balance knockdown on Soliman. Taylor then exacerbated an obvious eighth round right knee injury by muscling Soliman in the later rounds for three more knockdowns.
Much like Sergio Martinez against Miguel Cotto in June, and Darren Baker against Felix Sturm last year, we had a middleweight title fight that saw its outcome heavily influenced by injuries.
For his part, Soliman declined to blame the knee for his performance.
“I [injured myself] a little bit in training and I nearly had to pull out of the fight,” Soliman revealed. “Absolutely no excuses because if he wasn’t as good of a fighter as he was — a former undisputed world champion — I would have been able to come away with the goods.
“[Taylor’s] performance — you can’t take that away from him. The knee was fresh and fine as I was fighting so it wasn’t an old injury that came back because of bad luck.”
LAME DUCK TITLIST?: The conventional wisdom among most is that Taylor is going to get blasted out in his first defense. Both Quillin and Jacobs can punch, so that’s a logical prediction. We already know Taylor will not be looking in GGG’s direction for a unification.
Since Quillin has taken so much heat for vacating his WBO belt, he’s the one in dire need of a “big win.” Expect lots of spin to make the fight credible. The interesting question will be where the bout ends up. Will it be Showtime, ESPN or will Haymon possibly hold it for his rumored NBC deal set to kick off in January 2015? And if Taylor can get $1 million for Taylor to face Soliman as the challenger, is it possible we can see Taylor vs. Quillin generating career-high paydays for both?
DIRRELL TKO4 BRINSON: At least my other pick was spot on in Andre Dirrell destroying Nick Brinson in four rounds. Brinson. Dirrell’s quick counters let Brinson know from round one that he had no chance. Dirrell has a lot of lost time to make up for, so I hope he takes another stay busy fight to close out 2014, and then starts getting in there with contenders by April 2015.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 