Boxing

Validation awaits Taylor in rematch

By JOHN C. COTEY
Published November 29, 2005

Jermain Taylor is highly regarded. The future of boxing. A champion for the ages.

But until he beats Bernard Hopkins on Saturday night, the question will remain:

Is he the champion right now?

On July 16, Taylor won a controversial decision over Hopkins, taking all the middleweight title belts and ending the champion's 10-year reign. But if not for Duane Ford being the only judge who gave Taylor the 12th round, the fight would have been declared a draw and Hopkins still would be champion.

It is a drum Hopkins hasn't stopped beating since that night.

"He knows he didn't win it," said Hopkins, who is 46-3-1 with 32 knockouts. "He knows he didn't deserve it."

Hopkins may be right. Taylor was hanging his head in the ring between the final bell and the announcement of the decision, and at the postfight news conference did not look like someone who had just pulled off a huge win.

But the questions have Taylor angry heading into the rematch (9p.m. on HBO PPV).

"I have the mind-set of no respect," Taylor said. "He disrespected me to the utmost. Hopkins held those belts for a long time. It was a close fight, I won't deny that. But I felt I clearly won the fight."

He will get another chance to establish himself as the legitimate champion Saturday, while Hopkins will try to reclaim what he believes is rightfully his.

"I'm going to sit back and let him run his mouth and being an impersonator of who he thinks he is, a champion, and then let the world witness it," Hopkins said. "Saturday is definitely going to be the execution day and ... the world's going to see me rectify the system's problem.

"Just because you have the belts doesn't mean you earned the belts."

EYE ON THE PRIZE: St. Petersburg's Winky Wright will be an interested onlooker Saturday, as both fighters have stated they would fight Wright. Saying it is one thing, actually doing it is another.

As for picking a winner, Wright, who is fighting Sam Soliman on Dec.10 on HBO, said he'll take the young champion.

"To speak truthfully, I think Jermain may win," Wright said. "You know, he did, he won the first time and Bernard was playing around too much in the first fight, but I think Jermain believes in himself now. If Bernard had jumped on Jermain early in the fight I think that he probably would have won. So now Jermain has beat him.

"I'm not betting on it either way. Like I said, the best fighter will win. But if I had to bet, I'd bet Jermain."

STAYING AWAY: St. Petersburg's Jeff Lacy , the IBF super-middleweight champ, was in New York Monday hyping his March unification bout with WBO champ Joe Calzaghe . The two were scheduled to visit Tampa today, but that was scrapped when it was decided to limited the news conferences to one in each country.

DIRTY WORD: Wonder why fighters detest paying sanctioning fees to the governing bodies?

Two weeks ago, heavyweight Oleg Maskaev was No.2 in the WBC rankings when he beat No.1 Sinan Samil Sam . That should have made Maskaev No.1, setting up a fight with champion Hasim Rahman , who he knocked out in 1999.

But on Nov.18, the WBC voted to elevate No.5 James Toney to No.1, giving him the shot at Rahman.

So why did Maskaev have to pay a sanctioning fee the week before for an "elimination bout" that really wasn't?

All together now ... that's boxing .

Rahman-Toney may be the sexier fight, but by dishonoring its rankings, the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO continue to render them meaningless.

Dennis Rappaport , Maskaev's promoter, put it best when he told fightnews.com: "Only in boxing does kindergarten math not work."

--John C. Cotey can be reached at cotey@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 29, 2005, 02:15:28]