Jermain Taylor Outpoints Game Kassim Ouma

An experiment with open-scoring simply confirmed what was obvious to everyone watching -- Jermain Taylor was going to make sure his homecoming was a big success. The undefeated Taylor (26-0-1) successfully defended his middleweight belts with a twelve round unanimous decision against Kassim Ouma (25-3) in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Ouma did what he normally does and threw more punches than his opponent. However, Taylor was simply too big for Ouma and, despite moving backwards throughout, landed nearly all the heavy blows during the bout. Taylor - clearly aiming for his first knockout in nearly two years - was aggressive from the opening bell but Ouma, who has a great chin, was never in any danger of being stopped. CompuBox stats had Taylor landing 244 of 597 punches (41%) to 177 of 701 (25%) for Ouma.

Under the WBC's recently adopted open-scoring policy for title fights, scores were announced to the crowd after rounds four and eight. Taylor was pitching a 40-36 shut out after four and led 80-72, 80-72, 78-74 after eight. With both fighters knowing Ouma needed a miracle knockout to win, the final four rounds were, nevertheless, basically the same as the first eight and the final scores were 118-110, 117-111 and 115-113, all for Taylor. It's hard to see how the judges found that many rounds to give to Ouma but at least they got the decision correct.

Next up for Taylor may be an April date with the winner of season one of The Contender, Sergio Mora, followed by a move up in weight for a shot at undefeated super middleweight champ Joe Calzaghe.

Scoring wins on the undercard were Andre Berto, Emanuel Augustus, Dominick Guinn, Ronald Hearns and Jaidon Codrington. Elsewhere, Michael Moorer, Oliver McCall, Roman Greenberg, Michael Marrone, Audley Harrison and Amir Khan were all victorious. Check boxing results for complete details.