Taylor handles loss like a true pro

By Jeff Haney

Monday, Feb. 18, 2008 | 2 a.m.

What is wrong with Jermain Taylor, anyway?

His attitude appears way out of line for a modern, big-time professional athlete.

After 30 pro fights, hasn’t he learned the etiquette that governs how to behave after losing a close decision?

You’re supposed to act outraged. Claim bias. Denigrate your opponent.

It’s de rigeur to make a three blind mice reference, and virtually mandatory to declare you (all together now) “don’t know what fight they were watching.”

Taylor did none of this after dropping a unanimous decision to Kelly Pavlik in Saturday night’s nontitle fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Instead, Taylor reacted with humility and class, two things that all too often are harder to find on the Strip than an Arkansas Razorback flag or a Youngstown State T-shirt on a weekend when these guys aren’t in town.

As members of both fighters’ camps offered Taylor their congratulations on a job well done in the ring, the former world middleweight champ would have none of it.

“I lost,” Taylor kept saying. “I lost.”

Pavlik, who clinched the victory by sweeping the final two rounds on all three judges’ cards, won Saturday’s rematch by scores of 117-111, 116-112 and 115-113. The fight was more tactical but nearly as compelling as September’s first meeting, in which Pavlik won Taylor’s middleweight title.

“Some of us on our team thought we eked this one out,” Lou DiBella, Taylor’s promoter, said. “But it’s not the kind of decision you (complain) about. It was a terrific middleweight fight.”

Mindful of how Bernard Hopkins raised the devil after his two close losses to Taylor in 2005 (“He took some of my glory away,” Taylor said), Taylor handled the loss with grace.

“I trained my butt off, but I didn’t win the fight,” Taylor (27-2-1) said. “I give all the credit to Kelly. He came out and did the job.”

DiBella wasn’t the only one playing Wall Street prognosticator late Saturday night, saying Taylor’s stock in boxing rose with his game performance in defeat.

“Taylor’s a gentleman, a credit to the sport,” Bob Arum, Pavlik’s promoter, said.

Pavlik threw a lot more punches, according to the CompuBox tally, though Taylor connected at a higher rate. Pavlik landed 123 of 361 power punches (34 percent), for example, with Taylor landing 76 of 164 (46 percent).

“You never know about decisions,” Pavlik (33-0) said. “When you’re out there hitting each other and thinking about what you’re going to do next, you can’t sit there and worry about what the scoring is going to be. I thought I had him from about the seventh (round) on, especially the last three. He was tiring. I could feel him exhaling with each punch.”

In an indication of how taut many of the rounds were, Taylor won nine of the 12 rounds on at least one of the judges’ scorecards.

The Sun’s scorecard had it 115-113 for Taylor, who might have blocked or deflected more punches than Pavlik’s backers realized.

“He fought an intelligent fight,” DiBella said. “He came up short in the eyes of the judges. Some people might have seen it differently. It was close. It was give-and-take.

“If you get a main event like this every time boxing puts on a big show, we wouldn’t have any problems with competition from mixed martial arts or anything else.”

With Taylor bound for the super middleweight division, Pavlik plans to return to middleweight to defend his title against either John Duddy or Felix Trinidad, Arum said.

A showdown against Duddy, an Irishman with a big following in New York, would be a crowd-pleaser and a natural for Madison Square Garden.

A fight with Trinidad could mean a bigger payday for Pavlik, but would give ammunition to MMA loyalists who claim boxing promoters can’t help themselves in trotting out washed-up former champions instead of making competitive matchups.

When Pavlik ultimately steps up in weight class from 160, Pavlik-Taylor III could be in store. After Saturday night’s decision was announced, Pavlik walked across the ring and graciously offered Taylor a third fight.

“There is good sportsmanship left,” DiBella said, “even in our business.”