Jack Catterall is ready for his chance to shock the world this coming Saturday. He faces a monumental task in the form of undisputed super-lightweight champion of the world, Scotland’s Josh Taylor.
A win on Saturday night would see ‘El Gato’ become England’s first undisputed champion, in the four belt era.
The Chorley native sat down with bet365’s Alex Olds to share his thoughts ahead of the fight of his life…
JC: Camp’s been good…I’m excited now. I’ve got through the hard training and all the sacrifices. This week it’s tapering down…couple of days up in Scotland, get myself weighed in and then we’ll be ready to go on Saturday.
JC: I guess everyone’s path is different. For me, they were calculated risks. Being mandatory for the WBO title for so long, I found so many roadbumps on this journey. Ultimately I had to stay patient and keep faith that my team MTK, Sky and BOXXER would come to the right decision.
Josh kept his word... and here I am on fight week, ready to win not just the one belt, but all of the marbles.
JC: No.
People talk about ring rust, but I’m in the ring every day. I’m in the ring training, punching, sparring and we’ve seen it before with fighters all over the world who have retired and come back…a prime example would be Floyd Mayweather, who could go a year or 18 months without fighting and then come back at the highest level.
That is testament to how Floyd lives and how I’ve been living. Sparring, punching, running…doing everything in my ability to improve, while I’ve not had the fights.
JC: Everyone is entitled to their opinion. I’ve yet to answer those questions at a world level. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen Josh test himself and come out on top at world level. Everyone has to go through that transition and I believe, come Saturday night, I’ll come from the domestic scene and fully announce myself on the world stage.
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JC: I don’t read into it too much. People have been talking about the odds for the fight {Catterall is priced at 15/2} etc…. but I pay no attention to it. I’m fully confident in what I do and I’m fully focused on my job.
I’ll leave the critics to criticise… I know what I need to do on Saturday night; I need to perform at my very best to beat Josh and that is exactly what I intend to do.
JC: Yeah, there are definitely weaknesses there. I’d say as an all-round fighter, Josh does a lot of things well…
But there are certainly chinks in the armour that we can exploit. We’ve studied, we’ve watched and we’ve implemented things into training. I don’t want to go into too much detail but there’s certainly things that I can exploit on Saturday.
And I believe that will be his downfall…
JC: Honestly, I’m preparing to come up there and do whatever it takes. If the knockout comes, that would be sweet…but I know it’s going to be a tough fight, a long fight and if it goes the distance, so be it.
JC: Josh has been alright. I don’t read into his split personality too much. We’ve seen other fight weeks where there’s a bit of needle there but that’s all well and good.
I’m quite laid back…Like I say, there’s no hard feelings towards Josh. It’s a fight – may the best man win.
JC: This is what I’ve been training my whole life for. It’s not just 10, 12 weeks training…It’s 10 years of being professional which have led me to this point.
I fully intend to embrace the spotlight through picking up all those titles and everything that goes with it.
Chin – Gennady Golovkin
Power – Mike Tyson
Footwork – Pernell Whitaker
Heart – Muhammad Ali
Speed – Amir Khan
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