Jermain Taylor, the IBF middleweight champion, had his fight cancelled this following an arrest in which he is accused of pointing a gun at a family and threatening to kill them.
An Arkansas woman, Toya Smith, claimed that Taylor became upset when he attempted to take a picture with the family and his belt, and thought her son had dropped the belt on the ground. An angry Taylor, whom Smith says had been drinking, pulled out a gun and fired it into the air injuring her husband's ear.
"He bent down to give my son the belt and he almost fell over and dropped the belt, and he thought my baby dropped the belt," Smith said. She then described Taylor threatening her husband.
He put [the gun] up against his temple, I jumped in front of it and it went off up into the air," Smith said. "He was going to shoot him, but I saw it, he was going to kill him and I had to hit the gun."
As Smith and her family attempted to leave the situation in their vehicle she said Taylor continued to menace her and her kids, and said Taylor said he didn't care about the children. "He was pointing at the kids, so I jumped in front of him again and said, 'Please don't shoot my kids.'"
Taylor had a bout scheduled in February to defend his title against Sergio Mora, which has been postponed and is unlikely to be rescheduled.
According to his promoter Lou DiBella, the fight would have been off anyway because of a rib injury.
"His fight on Feb. 6 was going to be canceled due to a legitimate injury, a rib fracture, but this obviously is a shocking development no matter what the exact details are, and it leads myself and his management [Al Haymon] to be more concerned with his well being, his mental health and his future than his boxing career," DiBella said.
"Right now there aren't any plans to reschedule anything or think about his future in the ring until the events surrounding his legal issues are dealt with."
Prior to winning the title against Sam Soliman in October Taylor was arrested for shooting his cousin several times and firing a gun at another person in August. He was charged with first-degree battery and first-degree terroristic threatening, and is facing 26 years in prison.
Mora is in the process of finding a new opponent. "Do I have bad luck, or do I have bad luck? I am getting so used to this," Mora said.
"If I didn't have Lou and [adviser] Al Haymon scrambling for me to get another opponent, I would be panicking. But I'm in a good place. I have a good team, and they are going to take care of things."
[ESPN]
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