By Harry King

LITTLE ROCK — A hyphenated adjective, must-win, is applied in a variety of circumstances.

It is attached to a contest when a team is in contention for a championship, when a five-game winner needs one more W to be bowl eligible, and when a second-place team can avoid a first-round game in the Southeastern Conference basketball tournament.

Today, must-win adheres to former middleweight champion Jermain Taylor and whether he will remain relevant.

Once at the top of the middleweight class, Taylor fights unbeaten Carl Froch, the reigning WBC super middleweight champion. It is a division with four champions and a title belt is leverage for headline fights and nice paydays.

Taylor’s last fight was a dominating 12-round decision over Jeff Lacy, his former roommate at the 2000 Olympics, but that was expected. Taylor needs to do more and Froch is a perfect foil.

He is 24-0 and the next best thing he has going for him is his nickname, “The Cobra.”

His last fight was against Jean Pascal in December. Uninformed about Froch, a preview of his Pascal fight included this from former fighter and current British TV commentator Barry McGuigan: “Froch has beaten several tough guys. Men like Robin Reid and Brian Magee, but those guys were in the twilight of their careers.”

Not familiar with Reid or Magee, we’ll take McGuigan’s word on both counts.

Supposedly, Froch is supposed to be difficult to fight because he is both awkward and effective. Best of all for Taylor, Froch is supposed to be aggressive. Taylor needs somebody to come to him, somebody proud of his chin and willing to walk into punches.

Late last year, when Froch still had a sliver of hope that he would get a fight with Joe Calzaghe, he said there were other good names in the division, specifically Taylor and Mikkel Kessler.

At a midweek news conference in New York, both Froch and Taylor did their due as promoters, tossing out the quotes meant to pique interest.

“Only a few warriors have gone the distance with me,” Froch said.  “I’m showing the Americans what ‘The Cobra’ is made of.”

Taylor said the fight with Froch had made him hungry again. “If I catch him, he’s going to sleep,” Taylor said. “This fight, I want to show the doubters. I want to make a statement.”

It is imperative that he do just that.

Less than four years ago, at the same New York restaurant where Taylor and Froch held forth, Taylor and Bernard Hopkins promoted their fight in Las Vegas. That July, there was glitz galore in the MGM Grand Garden Arena, celebrities mingled with thousands of Arkies in the crowd of almost 12,000, and a ringside seat was $650 or more.

Tonight, the fight is in Mashantucket, Conn., in an arena with a capacity of about 4,000 and ringside seats cost $200.

Taylor’s last three fights have included two losses to Kelly Pavlik and it’s been more than three years since his second victory over Hopkins. Taylor says it’s good to be back in the limelight. If he wants to remain there, he needs to KO Froch. The Englishman is a likely candidate to cooperate.
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Harry King is sports columnist for Stephens Media’s Arkansas News Bureau. His e-mail address is hking@arkansasnews.com.