COMMENTARY : Meldrick Taylor’s Claim Is Proved Wrong by Tape

LAS VEGAS, Nev. —  The men who say they have Meldrick Taylor’s best interests at heart called a news conference Sunday to convince the boxing world that their man was cheated Saturday night against Julio Cesar Chavez. Instead, they wound up proving the opposite.

Promoter Dan Duva, co-managers Lou Duva and Shelly Finkel, and Taylor himself--after being discharged from a Las Vegas hospital after spending the night--tried to talk their way to the victory that Chavez snatched from Taylor with a dramatic, last-second technical knockout when he was hopelessly behind on points.

Meanwhile, doctors had an injury report on Taylor that could have been the result of a car accident, and the chief physician of the Nevada State Athletic Commission said if it were up to him, Taylor would still be in a hospital bed.

“It’s a hell of a way to lose a fight,” Lou Duva said. “We were winning the fight for 11 rounds, two minutes and 58 seconds. Then the referee took it away from us.”

Not exactly. What really happened was Taylor, leading by seven- and five-point margins on two cards, got nailed by a Chavez right with 26 seconds left. He was hurt, but dug in to trade punches once more.

Taylor had thrown more than 1,100 punches in the fight and landed 457--about 200 more than Chavez. But only Chavez’s last punch really mattered, a thunderous right that caught Taylor flush on the jaw with slightly more than 10 seconds left in the bout.

Taylor dropped on his back in a neutral corner, and referee Richard Steele began the count. Taylor used the ropes to pull himself up at six, but sagged backward into the corner post, supporting himself with his arms on the ropes. At eight, Steele asked if he was OK. Taylor did not respond, but instead looked at his corner, where Lou Duva was climbing into the ring. In that moment’s hesitation, Steele waved the bout over. There were two seconds left in the bout.

“No way in hell he should have stopped the fight,” said Taylor, who lost his 140-pound International Boxing Federation title to Chavez.

“I can’t believe (Steele) would do a thing like that in a fight of this magnitude. If I have to lose, I would have liked to lose being knocked out, not able to get up. I was winning. It’s ludicrous.”

But Taylor--who showed up 90 minutes late for a 10 a.m. news conference Sunday because doctors were advising him against checking out of Valley Hospital--was a badly beaten and injured fighter. Although the damage was masked by dark glasses and a small bandage on his cheekbone, Chavez’s fists had taken a terrible toll.

There was a “blowout fracture” of the orbital bones surrounding the left eye, a lacerated lip that caused him to lose and swallow two pints of blood, bleeding in his kidneys and dehydration. Taylor was placed on a stretcher and taken to the hospital by ambulance. He was given fluids and blood transfusions at the hospital, and took a CAT-scan to check for brain damage. The state boxing commission suspended him for 90 days for medical reasons.

And yet, Taylor, the Duvas and Finkel continued to insist that a terrible injustice had been done. Taylor had fought a masterful fight for 11 rounds and had even outslugged Chavez for much of the 10th. But he also was tiring badly late in the fight, and the vision in his left eye was diminishing with each round. When asked afterward to recount the final seconds of the bout, Taylor said, “(Steele)) didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t ask, ‘Are you OK,’ count, or give me no kind of directions. I nodded my head, ‘I’m OK, I’m OK.’ And he still stopped it.”

But repeated viewings of the videotape--which Taylor had not seen--reveal that Steele did indeed count and ask Taylor if he was OK. And Taylor did not respond, either verbally or with gestures, until after Steele waved the bout off.

Although after the fight Chavez spoke of giving Taylor a rematch, promoter Don King is said to be working on a Chavez-Hector Camacho bout.