Tally up another lacklustre win for Jermain Taylor, this time against feather-fisted St. Louis native Corey Spinks at the Fedex Forum in Memphis last night.

Boxing tentatively against a smaller opponent who, as HBO analyst Jim Lampley stated, ran "like a deer in the 12th round," Taylor, 27-0-1 (17), won a split decision amid boos from the 10,000 plus crowd whose appetite for blood was previously satiated by the Kelly Pavlik-Edison Miranda undercard fight. Taylor once again showed his limitations as a fighter, while Spinks showed his willingness to coast through the rounds doing as little as possible, even though with his lateral movement, and dominant hand speed, he had the potential to win the fight. I scored the dull affair a draw, 114-114.

Spinks, 36-4 (11), won the first two rounds with his hand speed, but Taylor picked up the pace at the bout's halfway mark, after his trainer Emanuel Steward implored him to fight with some sense of urgency.

The real star of the show--and Taylor deserves credit for giving him props in his post-fight interview with Larry Merchant--was Pavlik, who stopped murderous puncher Miranda in a wild shootout between two heirs to Taylor's middleweight throne. Pavlik, 31-0 (28), used his superior boxing skills and range to land power punches on Miranda's head, backing the Columbian up and throwing combinations while he had him pinned on the ropes. The first two rounds alone contained more action than the entire Taylor-Spinks bout, with both men throwing bombs with bad intentions. In the 4th, Miranda landed some good right hands to Pavlik's head, but the undefeated fighter appeared unfazed. Pavlik hurt Miranda in the 6th, knocking him down with a hellacious right hand and again moments later. The fight was stopped in the following round when Pavlik's deadly combinations went unanswered by Miranda.

The young fighter from Youngstown, Ohio stole the show with his dominant performance, and is now gunning for a fight for Taylor's middleweight crown. Taylor and promoter Lou Dibella may be out of room to hide from big punchers like Pavlik; there are too many fighters at 160 and 168 that Taylor can no longer avoid if he is to prove himself a true champion. Dibella has defended Taylor by saying that middleweight great Marvin Hagler often defended against smaller opponents; HBO's Merchant dryly observed, "Yyeah, their names were Leonard, Hearns, and Duran." Recent Taylor opponent Kassim Ouma and Spinks, with all due respect, are not Leonard, Hearns, and Duran.

Then again, neither is Taylor.