According to NBC Philadelphia, a year-old man claims Taylor pulled a revolver on him during a dispute while trying to evict him from an apartment. The Philly Voice reports that Taylor owns a two-story brick row home on the block where the incident took place. He led and on two cards when he was dropped in the final seconds of the twelfth round and was stopped with two seconds remaining, resulting in his first defeat and one of the most controversial officiating decisions in boxing history.
Taylor rebounded the following year to defeat Aaron Davis for the WBA welterweight title but was clearly on the decline by his mids, losing back-to-back stoppages to Terry Norris and Crisanto Espana in in punishing fashion.
The first-floor windows of his home are blocked by red curtains, only displaying a handwritten sign advertising a two-bedroom apartment for rent. No one answered the door when a reporter knocked Tuesday afternoon. People were moving items including three mattresses and a dresser out of the apartment building into the trunk of a green Ford.
They declined to identify themselves to a reporter. Taylor was a few months shy of 18 when he won the Olympic featherweight title at the Olympics in Los Angeles. Then he faced off Julio Cesar Chavez at the Las Vegas Hilton on March 17, , in what ended up being one of the most debated results in boxing history. Taylor was up by the count of six when Chavez floored him with just 17 seconds left.
The Philadelphia native was charged with aggravated assault, terroristic threats and weapons charges. It is unclear if he has an attorney who could comment on his behalf. Taylor had a distinguished boxing career highlighted by his Olympic gold in the featherweight division at the Los Angeles Games. The first bout in is considered one of the great bouts of the era even landing on ESPN's Top 10 list of superfights.
It was one of those fights that if you walked in on it in the 11th round and based your perceptions only on the way the two fighters looked, you would probably have thought Chavez was winning.
Heading into the 12th and final round, Taylor was up on two cards by scores of and The third card, by Chuck Giampa, had Chavez up , and is impossible to make sense of. Instead of playing it safe, Taylor came forward, paying a brutal price. The punishment piled up until Chavez dropped Taylor with 17 seconds to go in the fight. What followed in those final precious few seconds is among the most discussed and argued about moments in the history of boxing.
Taylor got up almost immediately. Badly hurt, holding a rope, and swaying. He took an 8 count. Appeared to look over at his corner while Richard Steele asked him if he was okay. There can be no doubt that Taylor was hurt badly. That if the round had gone on 30 seconds more he would have likely been knocked out. However, Steele stopped the bout after asking Taylor only once if he were okay, at a time when if he had stepped away and let the fight continue, Chavez would likely not even have had a chance to wind up, let alone finish another blow.
As tragic as that moment was for Meldrick Taylor, what followed was even worse. Taylor was hospitalized after the fight. The doctor who attended to Taylor said he had suffered a facial fracture, was urinating pure blood, and had suffered brain trauma.
Taylor fought for 12 more years after that fight, which Ring Magazine named fight of the year, and later fight of the decade. Chavez went on to burnish the credentials of his already legendary career, but Taylor was never the same.
He defended that belt three times before suffering a devastating TKO loss to Terry Norris 14 months later. That was his last fight as top-flight boxer. He fought Chavez one more time on September 17, He took 10 more fights after that against largely nondescript boxers and lost 4 of them.
He finally retired in after a loss to Wayne Martell.
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