Jermain Taylor, Unrequited Love and the Unforgiving March of Time

Published

10 years ago

October 11, 2014

Jermain Taylor never graduated from high school, and he never went to college either. But he loves the University of Arkansas more than most who have degrees from there. Arkansas Razorback paraphernalia adorns his body nearly at all times. He loves the school, its sports teams and the Razorback culture.

He loves it no matter what.

Taylor, age 36, defeated Sam Soliman via 12-round decision on October 8 to become the IBF middleweight champion. It was Taylor’s first title win since defeating Cory Spinks by split decision in May 2007. Taylor twice defeated long-reigning middleweight king Bernard Hopkins two years prior to become the new face of the division albeit for a short time. He defended his titles four times in two years before losing them to Kelly Pavlik in September 2007. Before the loss, Taylor bested Hopkins in the rematch, earned a draw against Winky Wright and won decisions against Kassim Ouma and Spinks.

But most boxing fans didn’t want to see the former undisputed middleweight champion fight Soliman for the title on Wednesday. In fact, most fans don’t want him fighting at all. Most writers didn’t want to see it either, something they opined about through stories and social media banter all month leading up to the fight.

Their reasoning was sound enough. Between 2007 and 2009, Taylor suffered four losses in five fights, including three brutal knockouts at the hands of Kelly Pavlik, Carl Froch and Arthur Abraham. In the last bout of the period, Taylor was diagnosed with a cerebral hemorrhage following his Round 12 knockout loss to Abraham.

When Taylor came back to the ring in 2011, he underwent a battery of medical tests at the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health. He passed them and was granted a license to fight again when the Nevada Athletic Commission’s Medical Advisory board voted 5-0 in his favor.

“I’ve seen a guy who I was with at the Olympics training camp, and he can’t even talk now,” Taylor told the New York Times’ Josh Katzowitz in 2013. “His brain swelled up, and his speech was slurred. I don’t want to be like that. But he chose his sport. I chose this sport. And I love it.”

But never mind that. Boxing doesn’t love Taylor.

Not being loved back is the worst. They call the phenomenon “unrequited love” but I think a better term might be something like “life-sucking death punch to the soul.” Or something like that. I don’t know. But I know it sucks. I’ve been there. It’s awful.

I remember the first time I saw her. Her name was Marcy (it wasn’t, but for the purposes of this story it will be). I didn’t know what to do! Literally, I was frozen in my tracks. I had no answer for Marcy’s existence. I was stunned by her. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. In boxing terms, she was Ray Robinson and I was some bum off the street with two fists and a face.

I had no hope.

I was a sophomore in high school. She was a freshman. She was in the gym that day for some kind of orientation. I don’t know. I don’t remember that part. But I remember seeing her across the room. I remember seeing her and feeling like my heart broke into a million little pieces right then and there.

I didn’t know what to do.

I didn’t say one word to Marcy that day, and I didn’t say anything to her for two years after either. What was I going to say? She was from another planet. I might as well have been an ant. Besides, I knew if I walked up to her, it’d be like she was speaking Arabic and I’d be speaking Chinese.

Even when I ended up talking to her, it was by accident. I would call her phone and hang up. I did that for two years. It wasn’t that I was building up the courage to speak to her. I didn’t have that in me. I just wanted to hear her voice. But one day she caught on to me. You see, there was a new service offered by the phone company that not everyone had yet back then. It was called Caller ID, and it showed the name and number for all incoming calls. When I was as senior, and she was a junior, Marcy had it.

I’d never heard of such a device! Clearly, this contraption was the work of the devil.

Marcy figured everything out like a little detective. She called me back and detailed to me how she deduced it. I’ll never forget the conversation. My stepsister and I shared a phone line in our house. It was listed in her name. But Marcy knew it wasn’t her. Marcy knew it was me.

Marcy was used to people falling head over heels for her. But it was the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to me! Marcy was sweet about it though. She wasn’t interested in me in that way, but she was always sweet to me. She’d talk to me on the phone. She’d entertain me if I visited her at work. She’d read all the little letters I’d write to her. Marcy was always kind and warm-hearted, even if I wasn’t.

But she’d never date me, and it sucked! Oh my Lord, it was the absolute worst feeling in the world. She dated someone else. Or if she wasn’t dating him, it was someone else. Or no one. Just never me. I just wasn’t her type, and there was no convincing her otherwise.

I tried, of course. Sometimes I think I did the best I could. But like I said, I didn’t know what to do. I was too young, selfish and stupid to know what to do. We’ve all been there, in one way or another.

Anyway, I loved Marcy as much as my little heart was capable of loving anyone back then. But I didn’t know how to love. Not really. Not yet. I came from a broken home rife with all sorts of dysfunction. I didn’t know what to do, so eventually I decided I’d just pretend like I didn’t love her. And when that didn’t work, I decided to just make myself forget her. And when I couldn’t figure out how to do that, I turned to drugs for help.

That’s probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to admit to myself. I started doing drugs, something I battled for seven long years, to forget about a girl! It’s incredibly embarrassing and shows a great weakness in my character.

Drugs eventually worked, except that they didn’t. You see, Marcy always popped into my head for some reason anyway. And I didn’t remember why until almost 20 years later. I have to tell you, there’s no greater sense of loss that I’ve experienced in my life than that remembrance. Knowing that the unforgiving march of time can go on and on and on without the acknowledgment of something so important is a devastating realization.

It all seems such a waste. Obviously, the waste isn’t thinking or believing or wanting things to have worked out differently than they did between Marcy and I in the romantic realm. Marcy fell in love and got married. She has three daughters now, each as beautiful I remember her, and a husband she loves more than anything else in the world. And I fell in love, too. Rachel and I were meant to be together. When God made Rachel, he was thinking of me! I love her so much. I could not ask for a more perfect wife. We’re two peas in a pod. We’ve been married for nine years now, going on one hundred.

But Marcy was important to me, and I ignored it. I can’t get that back. I never would have known how to love Rachel if I’d never seen Marcy across room that day. I never would have known what love is without having experienced the unrequited kind first. I never would have turned out to be me if had I not met Marcy.

I could’ve been at her wedding. I could’ve seen her grow into a mother. I could’ve been there if she needed me. I could’ve just loved her anyway.

But I didn’t.

All I did was discover 20 years later that not being loved back isn’t the worst thing after all. No. The worst is denying where love exists in the first place. The worst is throwing the truth away for a lie. The worst is forsaking unrequited love for the vanity of sparing your own feelings.

Here’s what I respect about Jermain Taylor: He hasn’t done that in his love for boxing. He might have taken two years off to pout about his life. He might have made poor decisions here and there. He might never be what he could have been.

But Taylor loves boxing, and he knows something about love that I didn’t, too.

Taylor knows love isn’t dependent on reaction, but action. Love is really straightforward if you think about it. The Beatles were right: It’s easy! Where most people get love wrong is that they believe it necessitates being loved back in return. But that’s all wrong. Love doesn’t demand reciprocity. It demands respect. Not for you. But for it.

Love exists for its own sake.

Taylor might do lots of things wrong in life. I’ve only met him twice. I don’t know. I know he doesn’t throw punches in proportion to the physical tools God gave him. I know he can’t always get out the way of knockout blows. I know he might very well be a criminal in regards to pending legal matters.

But Taylor I also know that he gets this one thing right in life above all else: He loves boxing, and he keeps on loving it. No matter what, he loves it. Boxing might not love him back, but Taylor loves boxing anyway.

“A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t,” said Jack Dempsey. It’s probably the most famous quote of one of boxing’s most popular heavyweight champions ever. Taylor is now the IBF middleweight champion because he does exactly that, even when he probably shouldn’t.

Whatever there is to say in regards to other matters, I’ll tell you this about that particular piece of information: I respect and admire the hell out of that.

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Kelsey McCarson

Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

Published

1 day ago

March 8, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Friday Boxing Recaps: Observations on Conlan, Eubank, Bahdi, and David Jimenez

March 7 was an unusually heavy Friday for professional boxing. The show that warranted the most ink was the all-female card in London, a tour-de-force for the super-talented Lauren Price, but there were important fights on other continents.

Brighton

Michael Conlan, who sat out all of 2024 on the heels of being stopped in three of his previous five, returned to the ring in the British seaside resort city of Brighton in a shake-off-the-rust, 8-rounder against Asad Asif Khan, a 31-year-old Indian from Calcutta making his first appearance in a British ring.

Conlan, a 2016 Olympic silver medalist who famously signed with Top Rank coming out of the amateur ranks, is now 33 years old. Against Khan, he was far from impressive, but did enough to win by a 78-74 score and lock in a match with Spain’s Cristobal Lorente, the European featherweight champion.

Conlan, who improved to 19-3 (9), absorbed a lot of punishment in those three matches that he lost. With his deep amateur background, Michael has a lot of mileage on him and he would have been smart to call it quits after his embarrassingly one-sided defeat to Luis Alberto Lopez. His frayed reflexes speak to something more than ring rust. Heading in, Khan brought a 19-5-1 record but had scored only five wins inside the distance.

Conlan vs Khan was the co-feature. In the main event, Brighton welterweight Harlem Eubank, the cousin of Chris Eubank Jr, improved to 21-0 (9 KOs) with a dominant performance over Conlan’s Belfast homie Tyrone McKenna. Eubank was credited with three knockdowns, all the result of body punches, before referee John Latham had seen enough and pulled the plug at the 2:09 mark of round 10. It was the fourth loss in his last six outings for the 35-year-old McKenna (24-6-1).

Harlem Eubank wants to fight Conor Benn next and says he is willing to wait until after his cousin “wipes Benn out.” Chris Eubank Jr vs Benn is slated for April 26 at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The North London facility, which has a retractable roof, is the third-largest soccer stadium in England.

Toronto

Local fan favorite Lucas Bahdi and his stablemate Sara Bailey were the headliners on last night’s card at the Great Canadian Casino Resort in Toronto. The event marked the first incursion of Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions into Canada.

Bahdi, who is from Niagara Falls but trains in Toronto, burst out of obscurity in July of last year in Tampa, Florida, with a spectacular one-punch knockout of heavily-hyped Ashton “H2O” Sylva. His next fight, on the undercard of Jake Paul’s match with Mike Tyson, was less “noisy” and the same could be said of his homecoming fight with Ryan James Racaza, an undefeated (15-0) but obscure southpaw from the Philippines who was making his North American debut.

Bahdi vs Racaza was a technical fight that didn’t warm up until Bahdi produced a knockdown in round seven with a sweeping left hook, a glancing blow that appeared to land behind Racaza’s ear. The Filipino was up in a jiff, looking at the referee as if to say, “this dude just hit me with a rabbit punch.”

The judges had it 99-90, 97-92, and 96-93 for the victorious Bahdi (19-0) who was the subject of a recent profile on these pages.

Sara Bailey, a decorated amateur who competed around the world under her maiden name Sara Haghighat Joo and now holds the WBA light flyweight title, successfully defended that trinket with a lopsided decision over Cristina Navarro (6-3), a 35-year-old Spaniard who “earned” this assignment by winning a 6-round decision over an opponent with a 1-4-3 record. The judges scored the monotonous fight 99-91 across the board for Bailey who improved to 6-0 and then returned to the ring to assist her husband in Lucas Bahdi’s corner.

Also

Twenty-two-year-old super bantamweight Angel Barrientes, a Las Vegas-based Hawaii native, delivered the best performance of the night with a one-sided beatdown of Alexander Castellano whose corner mercifully stopped the contest after the seventh round as the ring doctor stood in a neutral corner chatting with the referee.

The gritty Castellano, who hails from Tonawanda, New York, brought an 11-1-2 record and hadn’t previously been stopped. A glutton for punishment, he appeared to suffer a broken orbital bone. Barrientes improved to 13-1 (8 KOs).

The show was marred by an excessive amount of fluffy gobbledygook by the TV talking heads which slowed down the action and made the promotion almost unwatchable.

Cartago, Costa Rica

Fighting in his hometown, super flyweight David Jimenez scored a lopsided 12-round decision over Nicaragua’s Keyvin Lara. The judges had it 120-108, 119-109, and 116-112.

Jimenez, now 17-1, came to the fore in July of 2022 when he upset Ricardo Sandoval in Los Angeles, winning a well-earned majority decision over a 20/1 favorite riding a 16-fight winning streak. That boosted him into a title fight with the formidable Artem Dalakian who saddled him with his lone defeat.

Jimenez’s victory over Lara was his fifth since that setback. It sets up the Costa Rican for another title fight, this time against Argentina’s Fernando Martinez who acquired the WBA 115-pound title in July with an upset of Kazuto Ioka in Japan. Lara, who unsuccessfully challenged Ioka for a belt in 2016, falls to 32-7-1.

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Price Conquers Jonas on an All-Female Card at Royal Albert Hall

Published

2 days ago

March 7, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Price-Conquers-Jonas-on-an-All-Female-Card-at-Royal-Albert-Hall

Ben Shalom’s BOXXER Promotions was at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall tonight with an all-female card topped by a welterweight unification fight between WBC/IBF belt-holder Natasha Jonas and WBA champion Lauren Price.

Liverpool’s Jonas, who turns 41 in June, has had a sterling career, but Father Time has caught up with her. The 30-year-old Price, an Olympic gold medalist, had faster hands, faster feet, and hit harder. The classy Jonas (16-3-1) acknowledged as much in her post-fight interview: “She beat me to the punch every time.”

The scores were 100-90, 98-92, and 98-93.

In advancing her record to 9-0 (2), Price built a strong case that she is the best fighter to come down the pike from Wales since Joe Calzaghe. As for her next bout, she hopes to fight the winner of the March 29 rematch in Las Vegas between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan. That match, with all of the meaningful welterweight hardware at stake, would be a hot ticket item if potted in Cardiff.

Semi-wind-up

Caroline Dubois staved off a late rally to successfully defend her WBC lightweight title with a majority decision over South Korea’s spunky Bo Mi Re Shin. The judges had it 98-92, 98-93, and 95-95. Although the 95-95 tally by the Korean judge was quite a stretch, Shin performed far better than the odds – Dubois was a consensus 35/1 favorite — portended.

Dubois, a 24-year-old Londoner trained by Shane McGuigan, is the sister of IBF heavyweight title-holder Daniel Dubois. Reportedly 36-3 as an amateur, she advanced her pro record to 11-0-1 (5). Heading in, Shin (18-3-3) had won nine of her previous 10 with the lone setback coming via split decision in a robust fight with Belgium’s Delfine Persoon in Belgium.

Other Bouts of Note

Kariss Artingstall returned to the ring after a 14-month absence and scored a unanimous decision over former amateur rival Raven Chapman. The scores were 98-91, 97-92, 96-93.

The prize for Artingstall, who happens to be Lauren Price’s partner, was the inaugural British female featherweight title and a potential rematch with Skye Nicolson who would relish the chance to avenge her last defeat, a loss by split decision to Attingstall in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics. Nicolson, who was part of tonight’s broadcast team, defends her title later this month in Sydney against Florida’s Tiara Brown.

It was the first 10-rounder for Artingstall (7-0). Chapman (9-2) had an uphill battle after Artingstall decked her in the second round with a straight left hand.

In a mild upset, Jasmina Zopotoczna, a UK-based Pole, won a split decision over Chloe Watson, adding Watson’s European flyweight title to her own regional trinket. One of the judges favored Watson 97-93, but each of his colleagues had it 96-95 for the Pole. Although there was no great furor, the verdict was unpopular.

Zapotoczna, who fought off her back foot, improved to 9-1. It was the first pro loss for Watson who is trained by Ricky Hatton.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 316: Art of the Deal in Boxing and More

Published

3 days ago

March 6, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila-Perspective-Chap-316-Art-of-the-Deal-in-Boxing-and-More

So, they want to save boxing?

A group of guys with recent ties to the sport of boxing and bags of money suddenly believe they can save a sport that is older than any other sport since the dawn of mankind.

Boxing is the oldest sport.

When cavemen roamed the planet, you can believe one tribe bet another tribe their guy could whip the other guy. Thus began the sport of boxing. There was no baseball, soccer or horse racing.

Even the invention of the wheel was still a few generations away when men were duking it out with other men for sport.

Throughout history mentions of one man fighting another man without arms are written in the Tales of Ulysses and other literary references.

Boxing will never die. Period.

Here is the reason why.

Boxing requires only two men in their underwear with no weapons and no requirement of classes in jujitsu, kickboxing, wrestling or advance training facilities. You can prepare in your backyard with one heavy bag and a pair of boxing gloves. It’s simple.

MMA, on the other hand, requires money.

Boxing is for the poor. Any kid can walk into a gym and begin training. When they become adults, then they start paying to use the gym.

Don’t let people fool you and tell you “boxing is dying.”

People have been saying those same words since John L. Sullivan in the late 1800s. You can look it up.

The phrase “boxing is dying,” is said by people who want you to pay them money to save it. Kind of sounds like the guy currently sitting in the White House who is going to save America by firing Americans from their jobs and allowing Russia to take over Ukraine.

Don’t believe these people.

Boxing does not need saving.

Why would Dana White, who has stated for decades that MMA is bigger than boxing, though no MMA fighter can equal the purses of a Saul “Canelo” Alvarez or Tyson Fury, why is he involved in boxing?

There is big money to be made in boxing, especially with internet gambling sites being allowed all over the world. And boxing is popular worldwide. MMA is not.

More people know who Canelo is than UFC’s Alex Pereira.

I respect the UFC fighters. They put in hard work and battle injuries throughout their careers. But MMA is simply not as big as boxing. The purses of MMA fighters at the top level don’t come close to boxing’s top money earners.

Why did Conor McGregor, Nate Diaz and others quickly switch to boxing when called?

The money in boxing is much bigger.

Follow the money.

NYC

A rumble is planned for Times Square in New York City.

Vatos from Southern California are fighting dudes from Nevada and Brooklyn. Sounds like a script from the Gangs of New York.

Where is Leonardo DiCaprio when you need him?

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia (24-1, 20 KOs) will meet Rollie Romero (16-2, 13 KOs) in a welterweight match set for May 2, on Times Square in mid-Manhattan. This is one of three marquee bouts planned to be streamed on DAZN.

Others matched will be Arnold Barboza (32-0, 11 KOs) versus super lightweight titlist Teofimo Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs), and Devin Haney (31-0, 15 KOs) against Jose Carlos Ramirez (29-2, 18 KOs) in a welterweight contest.

This is the proposed match by The Ring magazine backed by Turki Alalshikh who, along with Golden Boy Promotions and Matchroom Boxing, is sponsoring this fight card.

It was also announced that Alalshikh, TKO Group Holdings, and Sela are forming a promotion company.

TKO owns UFC and WWE.

SoCal Fights

Southern California will be busy with boxing cards this weekend.

This Thursday, March 6, is Golden Boy Promotions with a boxing card featuring Manny Flores (19-1, 15 KOs) versus Jorge Leyva (18-3, 13 KOs) in a super bantamweight match at Fantasy Springs Casino. DAZN will stream the boxing card from Indio, California.

On Saturday, March 8, the Fox Theater in Pomona, California hosts a boxing card featuring super middleweights Ruben Cazales (10-0) vs Adam Diu Abdulhamid (18-16). Also, super featherweights Michael Bracamontes (10-2-1) meets Eugene Lagos (16-9-3) at the historic venue promoted by House of Pain Boxing.

On Saturday March 8, Elite Boxing hosts a boxing card at Salesian High in East Los Angeles featuring East L.A. native Merari Vivar (8-0) against Sarah Click (2-8-1) and several other fights.

On Saturday, March 8, an event hosted by House of Champions features top contenders Joet Gonzalez (26-4) vs Arnold Khegai (22-1-1) in a featherweight main event at Thunder Studios in Long Beach, Calif.

A Big All-Female Card in London

On Friday, March 7, the historic Royal Albert Hall in the Kensington borough of London will host an all-female card with two world title fights including a unification fight in the welterweight division.

Natasha Jonas (16-2-1) and Lauren Price (8-0) meet 10 rounds for the IBF, WBC, and WBA belts.

Jonas, 40, the current WBC and IBF titlist, recently defeated Ivana Habazin and before that edged past Mikaela Mayer in a win that could have gone the other way very easily. She will be facing Price, an Olympic gold medalist and current WBA and IBO titlist.

Price, 30, hails from Wales and has an aggressive pressure style that saw her win a battle between punchers with a third-round knockout of Colombia’s Bexcy Mateus this past December in Liverpool. Before that she defeated the always tough Jessica McCaskill.

In the co-main event, lightweights Caroline Dubois (10-0-1) and Bo Mi Re Shin (18-2-3) meet for the WBC world title.

Me Re Shin, 30, fights out of South Korea and has knockout power. She was one of only two fighters to stop Venezuela’s Ana Maria Lozano who has 38 pro fights. That says something. She lost a split decision to Delfine Persoon in Belgium. That really says something.

Dubois had two competitive fights, first, against Jessica Camara that ended in a technical draw due to a clash of heads. Before that she defeated Maira Moneo. Dubois has very good talent and is still young at 24. Is she ready for Mi Re Shin?

Times Square photo credit: JP Yim

Fights to watch:

Thurs., March 6: DAZN, Manny Flores (19-1) vs. Jorge Leyva (18-3)

Fri., March 7: free on DAZN, Lucas Bahdi (18-0) vs. Ryan James Racaza (15-0)

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