By Tim Smith

Josh Barron/Fightwireimages.com

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas – The conventional wisdom in boxing says that a good big man always beats a good little man. But Kassim Ouma doesn’t want to hear anything about conventional wisdom.

When it comes to his fight against undisputed middleweight champion Jermain Taylor (25-0-1, 17 KOs) at Alltel Arena in Little Rock on Saturday night the former 154-pound champion Ouma (25-2, 15 KOs) would like to apply another sports cliché: It’s not the size of the dog in the fight. It’s the size of the fight in the dog.

“When Jermain Taylor says he is going to knock me out that (upsets me),’’ Ouma said after the final press conference in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in downtown yesterday. “When he says he’s going to knock me out he’d better step back. It’s not that easy to knock me out.’’

Ouma has never been knocked out, but he has been down and battered. Roman Karmazin hammered Ouma over 12 rounds before winning a unanimous decision and taking away Ouma’s International Boxing Federation junior middleweight title in 2005.

“That wasn’t the Kassim Ouma we all know,’’ said Tom Moran, Ouma’s manager. “We shipped him off. We hope we never see him again. On Saturday night we’re going to see the best Kassim Ouma ever.’’

Ouma said that he typically walks around at 170 pounds and gets down to 154 when fighting as a junior middleweight. He said he was up to 177 pounds before going into training for nine weeks to prepare for Taylor. He said he weighed about 164 on Thursday afternoon.

“Don’t be fooled by these clothes I have on,’’ Ouma said pointing to his baggy sweatsuit. “When I take these clothes off you’ll see.’’

Emanuel Steward, Taylor’s trainer, said they are not taking Ouma lightly. He said he was present at the Karmazin fight and believes it was just an off night.

“I believe he had a cold before that fight,’’ Steward said. “He has a cute way of getting away from punches. He doesn’t get hit that easy.’’

Ouma said he is not worried about Taylor’s size or power. He said he sparred with middleweights and light heavyweights in anticipation of what Taylor can throw at him. Taylor, who won a bronze medal for the 2000 U.S. Olympic boxing team, has heavy hands. During the training for the Olympics, there was a machine that measured punching power at the facility at Colorado Springs. The two hardest punchers according to the machine were Taylor and super middleweight Jeff Lacy.

During a spirited workout at the Little Rock gym where Taylor began boxing as a 16-year-old amateur on Tuesday, Taylor threw punches into the mitts held by Steward with such force that he knocked Steward off balance. Steward said that while Winky Wright, who fought to a draw against Taylor back in June, caught many of Taylor’s punches on his gloves, the force of those punches reverberated through the gloves and busted up Wright’s face.

Ouma has one of the most poignant stories in all of sports. He was kidnapped from his school by members of the Ugandan Army when he was six years old and forced to become a child soldier. Any of the children who cried or tried to run were shot and killed. Those who refused to kill were killed. Ouma joined the military boxing team and defected to America during a boxing meet in Washington, D.C. in 1997. He was 19 years old.

Ouma left behind his family, including his mother and a son and daughter when he defected. His son, Umar, was just nine months old when he left. He saw him for the first time in nearly nine years last Wednesday when they were re-united in Tampa, Fla.

Ouma said he does not use his past as a motivation in the ring.

“I don’t care about the past because it makes me sad,’’ he said. “I care about right now because I have to put food in the belly of my daughter and my son and I have to put clothes on their back.’’

Moran told the crowd at the press conference about Ouma’s past and the misery that he left behind and the mental anguish that he has endured. He also told them that Ouma is close to being granted asylum in America and getting his green card. It was the kind of emotional tug that is often missing from boxing press conferences.

Taylor didn’t want people feeling sorry for Ouma while he is smacking him around in the ring and said he too is fighting for his family. Taylor said he was watching a fight involving Laila Ali and kept looking at the quick camera cuts to her father, Muhammad Ali, who was sitting ring side.

“(Muhammad) Ali was shaking and couldn’t speak,’’ Taylor said. “I was wondering how many times can I get hit before I start shaking like that. If that’s the price I have to pay for my wife and the people around me to live good then that’s the price I have to pay.

“All I care about is supporting my family. If I have to beat Kassim Ouma to do that, that’s what I’ll do. I respect this man’s dream. I hope he accomplishes all that. But I could care less. Come Saturday night he’ll get knocked out.’’