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JERMAIN TAYLOR-KASSIM OUMA RINGSIDE REPORT By Anthony 'Duljoman' Andales PhilBoxing.com Tue, 12 Dec 2006 NORTH LITTLE ROCK – From start to finish, fight fans were not frustrated of the Jermain Taylor-Kassim Ouma showdown. In each round, the challenger, nicknamed “The Dream”, is competitive with some skills, but undersized of force. The hired loser gets a nice payday and hometown fans are entertained. The middleweight champion delivered a win, but did not knock out the man from Uganda even though he was always absorbing some hard rights from Taylor. Taylor's inability to score a KO spoke volumes about Ouma's heart and raised questions about Taylor's punching power. It was far shy of what Taylor needed to wow a national audience, and did not help him in anyway to be impressive to the media and the fightfans as a whole. Early on, Taylor knew Ouma couldn't knock him out. At times, he had Ouma in trouble. In the first round, Taylor stopped Ouma's forward progress momentarily. Later in the round, he rocked him with a right. Ouma landed a good combination in the second and pursue his non-stop pressure to JT. But a champions heart cannot be counted out even though JT holds too much in the second, JT threw a red right between Ouma's green gloves in the third round. In the sixth, Taylor wiped blood away from a cut below his left eye, Ouma’s aggressiveness paid off as he managed to cut JT’s left eye, but that made JT to deliver flurry of punches. But Ouma’s diet on his camp might be fists as he seems not bothered by JT’s comby. The officials' cumulative scores were announced every four rounds (open scoring applied) and it was clear after the eighth that Taylor would win a decision. The scores ranged from 118-110 to 115-113, which seemed way too close. The big to-do about Ouma was his never-stop punching -- he averaged more than 100 punches per round in 10 previous junior middleweight fights. But tonight he only averaged 58 punches per round, compared to JT’s 50 punches per round. Ouma looks strong in 160lbs but more strength training is needed if he wants his punches to have outcome like Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao is as relentless as Ouma but Pacman’s punches are brutal. The crowd reportedly topped 10,000 with a gate of $1 million, but that might have been disappointing to some associated with the promotion in an arena set up to accommodate at almost 18,000. There was even word that the HBO fight was sold to sports bars and other outlets around the state. In such a case, fans could pay $5 or so and watch with dozens of friends instead of paying $45 for a balcony seat and 10 times that for a seat on the floor. Last June 17, 2006 when Taylor fought Ronald Winky Wright, I went to a sports bar here in Little Rock and I paid $15, and it was full house. And the tickets didn’t sale good also cause Arkansas is a football country, boxing is not very popular. And they never had a boxer before that stirs the state to excitement. Nevertheless, Taylor is a good start for boxing in the state of Arkansas. At post fight interview, Ouma went to the crowd and asked Taylor if he’ll get a rematch and promised a KO. If you asked me if Taylor is ready for Calzaghe? I would say no. Cause his intentions were not as bad as he claimed. Click here to view a list of other articles written by Anthony 'Duljoman' Andales.  |
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