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Photo © HoganPhotos.com
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To say Jermain Taylor (22-0, 16 KOs) dominated William Joppy (34-4-1, 25 KOs) might be an understatement and to say Jermain Taylor forced William Joppy to quit might be closer to the truth. From the opening bell to the final bell Taylor controlled this fight, to the tune of 120-107 on all three judge’s cards. I scored the bout 120-106 because Joppy was only able to land one punch in the 10th round, which caused me to score it 10-8. This all happened in what was supposed to be the biggest test of Taylor’s career, a former World Champion who Bernard Hopkins could not dismantle the way Taylor did.
Joppy started the fight aggressively, controlling the pace and jabbing. While Taylor generally likes to fight a slower pace than Joppy was dictating, he was forced to counter punch through the first four rounds at which he was very effective and still managed to control these rounds by landing hard uppercuts and hard left hooks. Taylor took control of the pace of the fight in the 5th round, beginning to jab effectively. Half way through the round Taylor landed a hard combination starting with several body shots and finishing with a left hook that floored Joppy.
After the knockdown it seemed to me that Joppy determined there was little he could do with Taylor and essentially quit. Joppy began running through portions of nearly every round starting with the 6th, apparently no longer interested in fighting Taylor, trying to simply survive the fight. Other than a bit of rough housing which Joppy initiated in the 8th round, by lifting Taylor off the ground and pushing him against the ropes to which Taylor responded with a couple of punches, Taylor was unfazed by Joppy’s incessant taunting and trashing, looking professional and methodical throughout the fight. As I mentioned previously, Taylor dominated the 10th round so convincingly that I scored the 10-8 in his favor. While Taylor landed effective shots throughout the round Joppy spent the entire three minutes either missing or simply trying to avoid conflict.
After Taylor passed what was supposed to be a test with flying colors, I ponder his future plans. What I would like to see is Taylor fight either fight the winner of Bernard Hopkins/Howard Eastman, presumably Hopkins, or even the winner of Felix Trinidad/Felix Sturm which might be a more likely next step. Word is Taylor’s camp will seek such a fight, possibly preferring Trinidad because this would likely lead to a bigger pay day due to Trinidad’s mass popularity, providing of course he defeats Sturm who as far as I am concerned defeated Oscar de la Hoya, in their June 5th bout. It will be very interesting to see what the future holds for this very promising middleweight.
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© Copyright / All Rights reserved: Doghouse Boxing 1998-2004
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By Mike Leanardi (December 6, 2004) 
