Josh Taylor looks to cement his place among the world’s pound-for-pound best when he takes on England’s Jack Catterall in London on Saturday night.
It’s been quite the rise for Taylor, who first came to prominence winning gold at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Just five years and 15 professional fights later he became IBF light-welterweight champion, set to fight unbeaten Regis Prograis for his WBA and the vacant Ring magazing titles. He took that by majority decision, and of course last year became just the sixth man in the four-belt era to capture the lot, out-pointing Jose Ramirez in Las Vegas.
But tonight, Catterall will pose a massive threat. Josh Taylor has to control his aggression and anger, even though it’s part of his winning formula with fighters. He needs to control his pace and intensity and how he puts pressure on fighters, boxing as well as fighting.
My prediction is either Taylor wins by late stoppage or points.
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Taylor is currently one of two undisputed champions in the world. The other is Canelo Alvarez, and people don’t seem to give him credit where it’s due.
Where does he go after here? I think he moves up to welterweight and there are great fights there like Terence Crawford.
Top Rank have sent a 30-strong team out to back Taylor from America. They don’t do that for anyone, and that tells me they have big plans for him moving forward.
Is he Britain’s best pound-for-pound? Without a doubt. I feel sorry for him fighting the week after such a big show like Amir Khan v Kell Brook because everything about that was second to none.
Now Taylor, despite being an undisputed champion, in regards to his boxing, people just don’t realise how good he actually is. He’s the best in the division, but what will flip him to super stardom is when he steps up in weight and fights the pound-for-pound greats, the likes of Alvarez (if he ever steps back down in weight), Errol Spence etc. and getting a win there will make the world sit up and pay attention to how good he actually is.
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