CARL FROCH TKO12 (2:46) JERMAIN TAYLOR

There have been some sensational, come-from-behind last-round finishes in ring history. Julio Cesar Chavez stopping Meldrick Taylor with two seconds remaining, Jake LaMotta knocking out Laurent Dauthuille, Mike Weaver flattening Big John Tate, Shannon Briggs blasting Sergei Liakhovich through the ropes in the waning seconds and Jeff Harding, bloody, battered and behind on all three judges’ cards, overwhelming Dennis Andries — all come readily to mind. Now we can add Carl Froch's dramatic victory over Jermain Taylor to the list.

Behind by four points on two cards, in front by four points on the third card, Froch, although he didn’t know it at the time, needed a knockout to retain his WBC super middleweight title as the bell sounded for the start of the last round — and a knockout is what he got.

Taylor, who had been fading steadily down the stretch, just couldn’t hold off the bigger, stronger British fighter. When Froch’s big right hands sent Taylor crumpling in a neutral corner — almost identical to the way he went down against Kelly Pavlik — the fight looked over.

It says a lot for Taylor’s heart that he dragged himself up at the count of nine, but he was a spent fighter, out of gas and unable to get his legs moving fast enough to keep him away from the pain and punishment that Froch was about to unleash.

If Taylor had grabbed hold of Froch the way that a dazed Thomas Hearns clung limpet-like to James Kinchen, if he had dropped to one knee to take an eight count, he might have managed somehow to stumble to the finishing post. I think, though, that he was too disorientated to think clearly. Instinctively he tried to punch back, but Froch smashed right through him. Referee Michael Ortega’s decision to stop the fight, with 14 seconds remaining, could not be faulted. Froch was landing big, flush shots and Taylor was defenceless against the ropes before sagging forward from the waist the way that Randolph Turpin did when succumbing to Sugar Ray Robinson's 10th-round offensive in New York.

Had referee Ortega not intervened I believe that Taylor would have been battered to the canvas in the next several seconds, and I do not think he would have been able to drag himself up a second time — I think it would have been a count-out at something like 3:05 of the 12th, as, under world title rules, fighters can no longer be saved by the last-round bell.

Taylor almost won, though. He boxed an excellent, smart, courageous fight. The way that Taylor was landing his right hands in the early rounds had me wondering if Froch could keep taking them, his well-known granite chin notwithstanding. Things looked really bad for the British boxer when he went down in the third, the first time he had been floored in his career, although Al Bernstein reminded us in the Showtime commentary that if Taylor couldn't force a stoppage he might have problems later in the fight, as he did after failing to finish off Pavlik in their first bout.

Bernstein’s cautionary words proved to be prophetic, but this was a desperately close call for Froch. In the early rounds it was as if Froch couldn’t get started, almost as if he froze in the big moment, as if the realisation had just hit him what a big, important fight he was taking part in, a main event on American TV against an elite-level former champion.

For agonisingly long moments it seemed that Froch was unsure what exactly he should be doing, as if he couldn’t make up his mind whether to box and jab, or to go right at Taylor. When he tried to move in and land heavy punches he had an indecisive, awkward look, and he was worryingly open to every punch that came his way, getting picked off and punished. At this stage of the fight Taylor was looking very, very good.

In the corner between rounds, Froch’s ex-champ trainer Robert McCracken, patiently urged Froch just to box the way he is capable of boxing and not worry about landing a big punch, and slowly, gradually, the defending champion started to pull himself together and put pressure on Taylor, and as Froch’s jab came into play, and found the target, so his confidence began to grow. Taylor, meanwhile, was showing the first signs of cracking under the mounting strain, nothing too obvious, just a little grimace as a jab smacked into his face or a slight stumble as he was moved back by punches that he had caught on the gloves.

Taylor was still boxing well, and still dangerous — as he showed when unleashing a series of hard shots near the end of the eighth round — but as the fight entered the last few rounds it was Froch who was in command and coming on strongly.

Even as late as the ninth round, commentator Gus Johnson reassured the American viewing audience that Taylor had “a lot of gas in the tank, folks”. The 11th round, however, saw Taylor, nose bloody, left eye swollen on top, being tracked around the ring, unable to keep Froch at bay.

After Taylor’s early dominance the fight had taken on a hunter versus hunted look, with the British fighter an implacable pursuer. One sensed that the final three minutes were likely to be tough for Taylor, but instead they were to be a disaster as Froch closed in for the finish like a predator that had finally cornered an exhausted quarry.

I didn’t keep a running score during the fight, but, reviewing my round-by-round notes, I found that I had Taylor ahead by 105-103 coming out for the last round. Froch, I felt, had almost closed the gap — and then he went one better closed the show.