Taylor knows about knockout blows

His life has been based on the ability to rise from a bad place.

So, for Jermain Taylor, picking himself up off the canvas of his first professional loss as a boxer and seeking a quick rematch makes perfect sense.

Taylor explains now that he let his training slide in preparation for his September middleweight world title defense against hard-punching, unbeaten Kelly Pavlik.

“I wasn’t running like I was supposed to be, I wasn’t focused like I was supposed to be,” Taylor said. “To be honest, I got too comfortable, too relaxed, too confident.”

When he was brutally knocked out in the seventh round, Taylor self-analyzed the question, “How could this happen?” He could salvage some encouragement in knowing he knocked down Pavlik in the second round and was close to finishing off the challenger.

“He dominated the first few rounds,” Taylor’s promoter, Lou DiBella, said. “His trainer had predicted a KO by the third round, and Jermain went after it.”

Yet, the real motivation was found in the harder truth that was delivered convincingly without sugar-coating. Pavlik pounded Taylor into a corner and delivered a devastating uppercut that forced Taylor to collapse to the mat in Atlantic City, N.J.

“There’s not a worse way to lose,” Taylor said.

Taylor (27-1-1) was unbeaten no more, a world champion no longer, and left to reassess not only how he’d fallen but reflect upon how he became champion in the first place.

What he couldn’t ignore as he weighed either a quick rematch with Pavlik or a move up in weight against a confidence-building lesser opponent was how those seconds slumped in the corner paralleled a childhood locked in poverty.

Dark memories, both.

“What growing up taught me was that even though you’re down, you can get back up,” Taylor said.

So, on Saturday night, Pavlik-Taylor II commences at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

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Raised in a low-income area of Little Rock, Ark., Taylor was charged with responsibilities that far exceed those of a typical pre-teen. As his single-parent mother, Carlois, worked the 3-11 p.m. shift at a nursing home, Jermain was the man of the house for his three sisters.

Sometimes, the Taylor home’s natural gas would get shut off because of an unpaid bill. That meant no heat and no hot water with small children inside. Taylor said he remembers at age 8 improvising without the gas meter.

“I went outside, cut the inner tubes off my bicycle and hooked the ends from the gas main to my home, which allowed us to have gas without the meter,” Taylor said.

More than once, Taylor recalled, his mother informed the family of tougher news for the children: no Christmas.

“Momma came to us and told us the truth: We didn’t have a present under the tree,” Taylor said. “She told us she needed the money to pay the bills. It hurt, but we understood. We were in survival mode.”

At 13, Taylor was taken by a cousin to a local boxing gym where a man named Ozell Nelson was training youths, including his son. Taylor stepped into the ring against Nelson’s son and was clobbered, but the trainer said he couldn’t miss “a fire” in Taylor, and urged him to return for more training. Their bond became father-son-like.

“I can remember picking up Jermain before an amateur event one time and taking the kids to a buffet, telling them to ‘get anything they want,’ ” Nelson said. “Jermain asked me about three times, ‘Coach, you mean we can get everything we want?’

“That look on his face -- that he had never eaten as much as he wanted -- just made your heart drop.”

The Taylor-Nelson union produced an Olympic bronze medal for Taylor in 2000. Nelson remained in a corner advisory role as Taylor’s pro record remained unblemished through a 2005 middleweight title victory over longtime champion Bernard Hopkins, and another decision over Hopkins later that same year.

Taylor then aligned with high-profile trainer Emanuel Steward in 2006, but after a draw with Winky Wright and the loss to Pavlik, he has re-installed Nelson as his full-time corner man.

Taylor made the decision while also rebuffing his promoter DiBella, who had pushed him to fight someone else before returning to Pavlik. DiBella said he’d planned for Taylor to move up in weight out of the middleweight division before the first Pavlik fight, and that’s why the rematch clause in their contract stipulated for this bout to be fought at a non-title weight of 166 pounds.

Said Taylor: “Back in the day, when someone beat you up on the street, you didn’t go fight his friend. You wanted to beat up the guy who beat you. I got nothing else in my mind but revenge.

“As soon as I got home, I said, ‘No tune-up fight.’ That’s the cowardly way. Taking this fight is what I believe boxing is about.”

Taylor is careful not to criticize Steward’s training for the prior loss, saying it was his own lapse of focus that generated this renewed commitment.

“I’m in better shape, I’m more hungry,” Taylor said. “I run five miles every morning. Unlike last time, I don’t ever press the snooze button on my alarm. This time, if I get him down, I’ll finish him.”

Nelson set up training camp far from Taylor’s Arkansas home, in Lake Las Vegas.

“We’re back where we started, back to the roots of what got him here -- hard work and dedication -- and I remind him of that every night,” Nelson said. “I tell him, ‘This is what we’re used to doing. Let’s go at it with a pick and shovel.’ ”

In the opposing corner, skepticism remains.

“History shows it doesn’t work out for first-fight losers in a rematch, especially those who’ve been knocked out,” said Pavlik’s manager, Cameron Dunkin.

Jack Loew, Pavlik’s trainer, added: “He got knocked out cold. A lot of fighters never recover from that. He can talk about running up more mountains for this fight, but this is a stronger, more confident Kelly Pavlik he’s fighting. How can he not have that knockout in the back of his head?”

Taylor doesn’t dispute Loew’s suggestion.

That knockout is first and foremost on his mind.

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lance.pugmire@latimes.com