Jermain Taylor Bio - DiBella Entertainment

You can say a lot of things about Jermain Taylor: Father, husband, fighter, son, good guy, and man of the people. And here’s another: Doesn’t duck anybody.

Taylor has fought some of the best opposition in boxing, in a weight class that has one of the largest and deepest talent pools. His opposition has included the likes of Bernard Hopkins, Winky Wright, Kelly Pavlik, Cory Spinks, William Joppy, and Kassim Ouma- to name a few.

Next up on Taylor’s list of impressive opponents is Undefeated WBC Super Middleweight champion Carl Froch on April 25th on Showtime Championship Boxing.

Taylor is coming off an impressive unanimous decision win over former IBF Super Middleweight champ Jeff Lacy. The two fought it out on November 15, 2008 in Vanderbilt University’s Memorial Gymnasium in Nashville, Tennessee in a WBC Super Middleweight Title Eliminator. Taylor came out the clear victor, utilizing his superior jab and well-timed power shots to defeat Lacy. Taylor’s impeccable defensive skills caused Lacy to miss the majority of his shots and Taylor cut angles all around Lacy, performing brilliantly.

On September 29th 2007, Taylor lost the first fight of his storied career as he was knocked out in the seventh round by Kelly Pavlik in front of a sold out crowd at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall. It was a clash of equal middleweights that many writers called a “Fight of the Year”. With the loss, Taylor dropped his WBC and WBO World Middleweight titles to the Youngstown, Ohio native. Regardless, Taylor had not dropped the respect of his fans, for he had fought a valiant fight where he nearly had Pavlik out on the canvas in the 2nd round with a series of powerful blows. The punch exchanges were tremendous and brutal, and both fighters proved their enormous hearts. There is no doubt that this will be remembered as a great battle. The two warriors decided to meet again in another battle on February 16, 2008. Always learning and improving, Taylor made this a more tactical fight but in the end came up short that night to the great champion Pavlik. Certainly there was no doubt that Jermain “Bad Intentions” Taylor would come back more determined and focused like a true champion always does- moving forward from his losses and coming back greater than before.

On May 19th, Taylor defended his World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization middleweight title against former welterweight champion Cory Spinks at the FedExForum in Memphis, Tennessee. Memphis was a natural location for a bout of this magnitude, Taylor from Arkansas and Spinks from Missouri. This was a true “Border Battle”. Despite Spinks' running and unwillingness to engage, Taylor was able to keep his composure, and win his latest title defense by scoring a split decision victory.

Taylor’s opponents cannot be questioned. Taylor twice defeated Bernard Hopkins in 2005.
He took on the talented and rather difficult Winky Wright in June 2006 and fought him to a draw. While Taylor would have liked to fight Wright again, contract talks couldn’t be finalized for a rematch. So what did Taylor do? He took on a young and talented Kassim Ouma in December 2006. The fight at North Little Rock, Arkansas in Alltel Arena was pressure filled. It’s never easy to fight in front of family, friends, and of course his friends from the local barber shop! Taylor didn’t disappoint with two judges scoring the bout 118-110 and 117-111 for Taylor. A third judge scored the bout 115-113, probably out of respect for how tough an opponent Ouma is.

Taylor proved his critics wrong in a highly anticipated rematch against Hopkins on December 3, 2005. The first fight, won by Taylor in a close decision, was thought of to be a fluke. The rematch, at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, was close but proved to be on Taylor’s side. Both fighters opened the fight cautiously, but Taylor’s left jab and dominating right hand took a toll on Hopkins. As he did six months earlier, Taylor scored a unanimous decision victory. Taylor learned plenty in his first fight with Hopkins that led to another victory in the rematch.

On July 16, 2005, Taylor had earned his first world championship with a hard-fought split-decision victory over Hopkins. Boxing found a new star who encapsulates all the values we like to see in our sports heroes – class, hard work, enthusiasm, accessibility, and talent. It was a bout that captured the imagination of the sporting public, and catapulted Taylor into a seemingly endless stream of media appearances and celebrations.

Just weeks after the first Hopkins victory, August 2, 2005, promoter Lou DiBella took the champion to fellow Arkansas native and former President Bill Clinton’s Harlem, N.Y. office. During the meeting, Clinton praised Taylor for his recent accomplishments and boxers in general for the sacrifices they make in pursuit of their dreams. Taylor presented the former President with a replica of the robe that he wore into the ring prior to the Hopkins fight in July. It was an emotional meeting for Taylor.

“It was amazing,” said Taylor of meeting Clinton. “I always wanted to meet him; it was an honor.” At this meeting, the humble Taylor was at the pinnacle of his career. He was now the toast of the sports world after his stirring victory over Hopkins, a tough fight with Wright, and his upcoming bout with Spinks- but he never forgot where he came from and his road to success he now enjoys was very difficult.

Jermain’s professional career was kicked off on HBO at Madison Square Garden on January 27, 2001 as a part of DiBella Entertainment’s “Night of the Olympians”. Facing a very experienced fighter in veteran Chris Walsh (17-5-6, 6 KO’s), he showed poise beyond his years, winning via fourth round TKO. Jermain put on an impressive display of power, knocking the more experienced Walsh down twice before the bout was halted. Over the subsequent months the victories started to pile up. Yet despite a string of impressive wins, Taylor was seemingly ignored by the media, who lavished praise on other members of the Class of 2000. But with each successive month, some of Taylor’s peers began to fall behind, either beaten in the ring or taken down by their reliance on their press clippings.

“I felt like if I kept working hard and kept my head on straight, there’s no telling how far I could go,” said Taylor, who truly arrived after a fifth round stoppage of Marcos Primera in March of 2003 before his home fans in Little Rock.

Suddenly, the boxing world embraced Taylor, and was unable to ignore his jackhammer jab, concussive left hook, and veteran’s poise between the ropes. Yet none of the acclaim - which includes modeling for Everlast, Vogue, and GQ, and receiving the 2003 Most Improved Fighter award from The Ring magazine - affected Taylor. You won’t see him running the streets with an entourage.

“That’s the thing about Arkansas,” Taylor said. “It’s so small that you don’t have to have an entourage or anything like that. I don’t really need it. A person’s friends have a lot to do with how people act. If a person has good friends, that’s going to help them out a lot because they don’t have to do all this stupid stuff and deal with peer pressure. I don’t have to worry about that.” Taylor hopes this attitude will rub off on the youth of America, who are sorely in need of positive role models. “I’m hoping that I can be a role model for the kids,” said Taylor. “Not the earrings, the long hair, the sagging pants and big clothes. I think kids need a new role model.”

In 2004, Taylor gave boxing fans a new star, as he truly arrived on the world scene when he returned to his hometown on March 27, 2004 to face Alex Bunema (23-5, 18 KOs) on HBO’s Boxing After Dark series, ten weeks after scoring a violent first round KO of southpaw Alex Rios on January 9. Taylor’s jab pumped like a piston all night, confusing and frustrating his game opponent. He followed his jab with crushing right hands and by the middle rounds; Taylor could sense the feisty Bunema was wearing down. A left-right combination put Bunema down on the canvas for the first time in the seventh round. Bunema would beat the count but wouldn’t last much longer as Taylor pummeled him against the ropes. With Bunema slumped down on a knee, the referee ended the onslaught. Taylor improved to 20-0, and earned his 15th KO. Including that stoppage, Jermain had registered KO victories in eight of his last nine bouts, facing stiffer competition every time.

Squaring off against former world champion Raul Marquez (35-2-0) on June 19, 2004, Taylor dominated his more experienced opponent throughout the contest at the Home Depot Center in Los Angeles. As the fight moved into the later rounds, Jermain had an answer for everything the cagey veteran threw his way and knocked Marquez down in the ninth. Taylor scored a TKO triumph when, between the ninth and tenth rounds, Marquez’s corner, after seeing him absorb too much punishment, decided he shouldn’t continue.

On December 4, 2004, hometown fans packed Barton Coliseum in Little Rock to watch Taylor take on Joppy, a former three time middleweight champion, who was 34-4-1 with 25 KO’s. In the opening moments of the fight, the fighters exchanged stiff jabs, body shots and combinations. From a crushing right uppercut on the chin in the first round, followed by a punishing left hook to the face in the second round and finally a knockdown of Joppy in the fifth round, it was clear that Taylor would dominate the fight against the seasoned veteran. Taylor scored a unanimous decision (120-107 on all three scorecards) to retain his WBC Continental Americas Title. This impressive triumph, on HBO, established Jermain as the force to be reckoned with in the middleweight division.

On February 19, 2005 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Calif., Taylor proved worthy of the title of “heir apparent to Bernard Hopkins” with a devastating TKO victory over previously unbeaten Daniel Edouard (16-1-2, 9KO’s). The fight was on the co-feature Hopkins vs. Howard Eastman on HBO World Championship Boxing.

In a bout boxing experts expected to be Taylor’s toughest test up until that point in his career, Jermain dominated from the start. He connected on over half of his punches thrown, dictating the fight and using his jab and power shots to overwhelm Edouard. As Taylor was connecting on a barrage of unreturned bombs, referee Ray Corona stopped the fight 2:26 into round three. “There are no easy wins in the sport of boxing because everybody wants to be champion,” said Taylor. “And I think that in order to train a person needs to be away from his surroundings to take his mind off everything,”

In August of 2003, Team Taylor added a new member when Jermain married the former Erica Smith, who is a world-class athlete herself as a former standout guard for the Louisiana Tech women’s basketball team who was drafted by the WNBA’s Washington Mystics in April of 2005.

Jermain and Erica are the proud parents of three daughters. His girls include Nia- born on December 14, 2004, Tyra- born on August 7, 2006, and Laila- born on December 10, 2007.

Married and family life took a bit of getting used to, especially for two wonderful athletes with different training schedules.

“It has its ups and downs because if I’m off, 9 times out of 10 Erica’s in training, and I just want to be home, a husband to my wife, and when Erica’s off, I’m away training, and Erica just wants a husband,” admits Mr. Taylor. “But Erica knows what it takes to have to get up in the morning to go run, and if I’m having one of those days when I’m kind of lagging, she’ll call me up and say ‘are you running?’ and I do the same thing with her. She tells me to just train hard and keep your head up, no matter what happens.”

So throughout the peaks and valleys of a life that was difficult to deal with at times, Jermain Taylor has excelled and is truly happy now. “I’m happy the way my life turned out,” said Taylor. “I’m happy with the people I signed with. I was not rushed. I was not babied. And I’m right on schedule. There is no downside to this. I love it all.”

Born on August 11, 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas, Jermain Taylor and his three younger sisters were abandoned by his father when Jermain was just five years old. Since his beloved mother Carlois had to work full-time as a nurse’s assistant to support her children, Jermain grew up fast because he watched after his three younger sisters while mom worked. Jermain changed diapers, did the laundry, and washed dishes- when all of Taylor’s friends were outside being kids without him. Little Jermain was forced into the role of “Man of the House” before he understood what it took to become a man.

“I think about it all the time,” Taylor admits. “Why did I have to do that? Why did I have to grow up so fast like that? But I just say that I’m going to try and be a better man than that.”

Add in the fact that the Taylor family was not exactly living in the lap of luxury, and the rough road got even rougher.

“When I look at where I come from, if it was a picture that I could show you, it would almost bring you to tears how poor we were,” said Taylor.

Christmas time was even tougher than usual to deal with for the Taylor family. “Christmases were hard,” admitted Taylor. “There were a couple of times when I didn’t have Christmas.”

There was a lot of love in the house though, and the family persevered through the rocky times. And in a way, Taylor’s speedy maturation process would come in handy when he began competing in the world’s hardest game. Admirably, Taylor refuses to talk negatively about the father that left him and his family.

“Even though there are a lot of things in my head that go against my father, in my heart I still love him to death, and every time I see him, my heart still jumps,” Taylor said. “It jumps up and down just to know he’s my father.”

But if there is a silver lining in the clouds of Taylor’s childhood, as he is determined not to repeat the mistakes of his own father.

Said Taylor in a touching statement, “It’s changed me so much because I know you have to spend time with a child. If not, the child will still love you, but he won’t know you. I know my dad, but I don’t know him. I don’t know what he’s like; I don’t know his mean face. I want my kids to know me – to know what I like, and what I don’t like – to know my facial expressions. And the same way for them. I want to know the way they look when they’re mad, when they’re sleepy. Little things like that are part of being a dad.”

Boxing started early for Jermain. At the age of 13, and still taking care of his sisters religiously, Jermain decided to look for something to do with his little spare time that would mean something to him. While other kids were going in the wrong direction, his uncle who was a boxer took Jermain to the local gym. It was a rocky beginning for Taylor. He took a severe beating the first time he stepped through the ropes. Worse, he received a subsequent tongue lashing from his mother for wanting to participate in the sport called the hurting’ business.

But It was too late- the boxing bug had bit Jermain good and he sneaked back to the gym, eager to learn and compete.

“If it weren’t for him, there’s no telling where I would have been,” said Taylor of Nelson, who not only handles training duties but also is a surrogate father to him. “Ozell and his wife took me in. I used to go over their house and eat, sleep, and do everything, just like I was a part of the family – and they had kids of their own. Now that I look back on it, it must have been hard because he wasn’t rich. But he still tried to bring me in and love me like I was one of his sons. A kid, and especially a young man, needs to have somebody who he can look up to, because if he doesn’t, he’s going to look to the streets. It’s easier to pick up a bad habit than a good habit. Coach taught me how to work. He taught me that your word is the only thing a person can have. And if you mess your word up, you’re worth nothing. He taught me that if you put in 100% it will definitely come out 110%. And I believe that.”

With a strong support system in place, as well as a Spartan work ethic and substantial talent, Taylor handled his business on the Arkansas amateur circuit. Taylor and Nelson, like a father-and-son team, traveled around in an old Chevy truck and had the time of their lives. But in the politically charged atmosphere of amateur boxing, Taylor was ignored locally. So he had to make some noise nationally.

“I got picked over for everything,” remembers Taylor. “Nobody was looking at Arkansas because Arkansas was small. They said, ‘Don’t worry about Jermain.’ Then I started winning National tournaments and I started making a name. Then ‘Bam’ Jermain is all that. Our first goal? The 2000 Olympics! “I told myself, ‘I’m going to the Olympics,’ and I wouldn’t let anything stop me from getting there.”

To get there, Taylor piled up victory after victory. His amateur career was stacked with accolades beginning with the 1996 Under-19 Championship; he then won a pair of PAL Championships and National Golden Gloves titles and finished second and third at the 1997 and 1998 U.S. Championships respectively. He then hit what was until that time the high point in his amateur career by winning a bronze medal at the 1998 Goodwill Games.

This achievement was sadly overshadowed by the subsequent murder of his beloved grandmother, Gussie Robertson. The killer was her own son, who killed himself three days later. At her funeral, Taylor placed his Goodwill Games medal in her coffin. Taylor now uses his grandmother as inspiration every time he steps through the ropes. “Every time I get into the ring, she’s the first person that pops into my head,” Taylor reflected. “Before a fight, I go to a neutral corner, kneel down and say a prayer to God and my grandmother.”

He then went on to accomplish his childhood dream by winning a spot on the US Olympic team. Taylor, who was the first boxer from Arkansas ever to compete in the Olympic Games, brought home a Bronze medal for his efforts.

Needless to say, the quietly charismatic young man with the loud fists was the center of much attention from promoters until he signed with DiBella Entertainment after the Sydney Games. Lou DiBella, a former executive with HBO Sports known for his integrity and love of the sport, made a great team with the young middleweight. “Lou was my only choice to represent me as a professional,” Taylor said. “He was honest and straightforward with me and he knows the game. Most importantly, I trust him.”