How different would his career have turned out, up on points with three rounds left against Chavez, strap on your track shoes and run for dear life.
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How different would his career have turned out, up on points with three rounds left against Chavez, strap on your track shoes and run for dear life.
Not much. Chavez had already beat him up real bad. Taylor couldn't run, even if that was his nature. Chavez had busted him up to the body, his face was broken, his ass had been kicked.
That is where people get messed up about this fight, about what was going on in that ring. Taylor was fighting his heart out but he was getting killed. People act like Chavez landed one right hand and Richard Steele stopped the fight because Don King bribed him. He stopped the fight because Chavez was about to kill Meldrick taylor. Who do you think busted up Taylor's face, did the internal damage that hospitalized him after the fight? Richard Steele? Georgie Benton in the corner?
He was on real bad legs in the 8th, 9th rounds, how was he going to run? I was suprised he made it through the 10th round. All of a sudden he was going to find spring in his legs and start dancing?. His legs were shaky that whole fight; count up the times he missed and fell. Watch the rest of his career and see his legs.
And he didn't know how to fight that way, it just wasn't in his nature.
Grey pretty much nailed it. Its just who Taylor was. Clear from early on exchanging with Ramos and getting rocked for it. I think Oscar was closing like that with Tito out of preserving something that really wasn't certain at all, while Taylor was trying to cement and seal a win. If Taylors legs and feet ever had the speed of his hands, he would have been even more phenominal.
If Taylor gave away the last 3 rounds would be have lost the fight to chavez?
it wasn't in his nature to run, and like mentioned he took too much punishment to the body to run even if he wanted to IMO.
OK I have a confession.
I had the fight even coming into the 12th round.
There I have said it.
Here's the deal Meldrick Taylor WAS a slick boxer, but since he was a Philly guy he wanted to fight the Philly way and it kept him from being great. Taylor NO DOUBT could have outboxed JCC from the get go, but he chose to brawl and he chose poorly.
Had Taylor ran the last round he MAY have gotten a decision he may not have because JCC was THE MAN at that time and judges may have given him a draw or decision even if Taylor lasted the distance. Also his career would have been over anyway because he never learned his lesson after that fight and he never fully recovered and he was just so damaged from that fight.
Taylor was beaten so badly his flat top fade shrunk because his face was so swollen
Many of the boxing writers at the time had it the same. The consensus, then, was that the judge that had Taylor way ahead wasn't watching the fight close enough. Over the years, the reality has changed to the point where Taylor was dominating the fight until Chavez landed a lucky punch and a Don King employee stole the fight from poor Meldrick.
I had Chavez up by two going into the 12th, but knew there were very close rounds that could go the other way. I thought the KD would have sealed it for him.
Some of these comments are strait out of the twilight zone
1. LOl about how he could not run, however he could stand there a battle for three more rounds, takes way more energy to box than it does to run, and body punishment will effect someone's boxing before it effects someone's running ability
2. The question was not about his nature as a boxer, it was how his career would have been different
3. No boxer in history did what Oscar did, however if many had boxing history would be rewritten, this is the best example.
1. You are assuming he would've been able to purely run, without having to throw his jab or set traps, feint etc:confused: Chavez was a monster and very adapt at cutting the ring off, it would have taken a lot more energy to keep distance and still avoid punishment at that point in the fight for Taylor, yes.
2. You can't really seperate the two, was the point made. He had already taken a crapload of punishment before the championship rounds that likely took a lot out of him. The stoppage was just a footnote to this.
3. No it isn't.
1. I am not assuming anything, I am saying take the De La hoya tactic and implement it in this fight, the samething you saw Oscar do is what Meldric would do, one minute you justify a cowardly act by a boxer, the next you say it is impossible for another boxer to do it, makes no since.
2. We do theoretical props all the time, we do you mean we cannot seperate the two.
3. If it isn't give us an example of what is.
Oscar was able to be that mobile because he didn't soak near half what Taylor did. Had, in this twilight zone, Taylor fought like he did and then tried to count souly on mobility he probably would have been tracked down on jelly legs. The investment was already made and damage done. Tito had 12 rounds to cut him off do damage and pull a win, it wasn't a three round fight.