Blaming himself for loss to Pavlik, Taylor’s looking forward to rematch

By Jeff Haney

Monday, Jan. 21, 2008 | 2 a.m.

As Kelly Pavlik was staggering around the ring, woozy from Jermain Taylor’s relentless attack of punches, Lou DiBella could barely resist jumping into the ring and celebrating.

“I thought Kelly was out,” said DiBella, Taylor’s promoter, recalling the second round of September’s middleweight title fight in Atlantic City. “Kelly’s a man’s man to be able to get up after those shots.”

With DiBella holding himself back, Bob Arum, who promotes Pavlik, asked his matchmaker, Bruce Trampler, whether it was all over.

No, Trampler told him, Pavlik still has some fuel in the tank.

And he used it to forge the most improbable comeback in a championship fight in 2007, rallying to stop Taylor by seventh-round knockout in one of the most exciting middleweight fights in years.

“As the rounds went on, I think there was something in the back of Jermain’s mind making him wonder if he missed his chance by not finishing it off,” DiBella said.

Taylor, who immediately exercised his contractual option for a rematch, will try to reverse the result when he faces Pavlik at a catch weight of 166 pounds on Feb. 16 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Taylor, preparing for the rematch at Johnny Tocco’s Gym downtown, was refreshingly candid in his analysis of the first fight. He acknowledged he had become complacent in his role as world middleweight champion — a title he earned by beating Bernard Hopkins twice in 2005 in Las Vegas — and didn’t train hard enough for Pavlik.

“It’s different getting your butt kicked when you’re not in shape than when you gave it all you got,” Taylor said. “If you gave it all you got and you get your butt kicked, you can hold your head up high. My head is low right now because I feel like I cheated myself. I knew what it took to get there, and I stopped doing it.”

The outcome was particularly frustrating for Taylor because he had come so close to defending his belts with an early stoppage at Boardwalk Hall.

“I had him out of there,” Taylor said. “I don’t make excuses. You never hear me say anything about the fight should have been stopped or anything like that. But he was out of there. He was holding on to me.”

After the fight, Taylor parted ways with Emanuel Steward, reinstating Ozell Nelson as his lead trainer.

Nelson, who has been with Taylor since his amateur boxing days in his home state of Arkansas, declared that improving Taylor’s stamina would be his top priority.

“Talking with Jermain after the fight, and then knowing what I saw when Jermain got tired, I knew what was wrong,” Nelson said. “It was endurance. I knew what it was, and I knew we could fix it.”

Nelson has Taylor running hills and on the track as well as on the treadmill, he said, along with heavy sparring and some unconventional techniques.

In one exercise, he fires tennis balls at Taylor like a human pitching machine, forcing the boxer to dodge them as if they were punches. Another method, one Nelson learned from veteran trainer Dickie Wood, entails whacking a jumbo tire with a sledgehammer.

“It gives you muscle and endurance,” Taylor said. “If I had the endurance, I wouldn’t have gotten tired. I would have finished him.”

The rematch has the makings of another thriller, DiBella said, because Pavlik’s aggressive style brings out Taylor’s brawling instincts.

“If they fought 10 times, I believe the outcome of the fight would be in doubt every one of those times,” DiBella said. “Jermain is more of a boxer, but these guys can’t help it. Once they get toe to toe, someone is going to get hurt. I just happen to think that this time, it’s going to be the other guy.”