Taylor Wins Ugly In Homecoming
By Jeremy Valdez (Dec 11, 2006)
Perhaps Jermain Taylor isn't as good as his undefeated record and Undisputed Middleweight Championship would suggest.  Or perhaps he just does enough to get by.  The latter is likely true as Taylor looked less than spectacular, but did enough to get a unanimous decision victory over Kassim Ouma in front of about 10,000 of his fans in his hometown of Little Rock, AR on HBO's World Championship Boxing.

From the opening bell it was clear that the 5'8" Ouma was far too small and not quite fast enough to be able to get inside
 to land any meaningful punches against the 6'1" Taylor.  Taylor, seemingly, could use his jab and combination punching to rock Ouma on the outside all night long.  Instead, however, Taylor chose to pick his spots to throw his combinations and moved backwards for the majority of the fight.  Although he never really seemed to be in the fight Ouma constantly pressured Taylor, but was unable to get any punches off when he was able to get inside.  Instead, the action usually ended up in a clinch at that point.  Ouma also showed a surprisingly good chin at middleweight as he was able to walk through everything Taylor was able to land. He just couldn't deliver enough in return to make it a close fight.
 
Although Ouma seemed to be an easy target, Taylor couldn't get in a rhythm during the fight and couldn't use the skills that so many seem to think he has to deliver an impressive performance.  Maybe that's the direct result of being in the ring with Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright for his last 36 rounds.  Two guys who win in ugly fights so often. He abandoned his jab early and landed hard flurries during spurts in each round.  His size and reach were enough to limit Ouma's punch output to just over half of what he usually throws.  Taylor pressed for a knockout in the first two rounds but after an accidental headbutt early in the fight he seemed to lose focus and tire down the stretch. Knowing that he was ahead throughout because of the open scoring system used in the fight, Taylor seemed satisfied to coast to the decision victory in the late rounds and move on to, hopefully, bigger fights.  Taylor retained his WBC and WBO titles in the fight and improves to 26-0-1 while Ouma falls to 25-3-1.  The judges’ scores were: 118-110, 117-111, and 115-113.  Taylor's next possible move is a trip up to super middleweight to challenge long reigning champion Joe Calzaghe, in a bout that will go a long way in judging both fighters place in the sport.
 
On the under card, Andre Berto continued to blow away the opposition as he scored a 6th round TKO over Miguel Figueroa.  Berto landed power punches from all angles throughout the fight and after the 5th round Figueroa seemingly wanted to quit in his corner, but his trainers seemed to belittle him and forced him to come out for the 6th round to take more unnecessary punches before the referee finally stepped in to call a halt to the bout.  Berto improves to 16-0 while Figueroa falls to 24-6-2.


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