IT’S THE AGE OF HEROES
Taylor has progressed from street fights and taekwondo to become a world boxing champion in the making
I was a terrible loser. If I was playing snakes and ladders and lost, I would throw the board up in the air
THE three ages of Josh Taylor, brother, fighter and potential world champion. ‘At five, I was already fighting. I was walking into taekwondo contests with an incredible will to win. I have always believed that the guy in the opposite corner was going to get beaten. There is no way he was going to beat me.
‘I was a terrible, terrible loser. If I was playing hide and seek or snakes and ladders in the house and I lost, I would throw the board up in the air and say: “I am not playing anymore”. My sister has been covered in dice and counters a thousand times.
‘I had hundreds, hundreds of contests at taekwondo. You could have five, six fights in a day in a tournament. These tournaments would have been quite laidback, just kids, but I would have been serious. Dead serious.’
Taylor takes a pause to laugh at his childish but profound determination. The strength of that has never deserted him, though, and it will accompany him into the ring when he faces Miguel Vazquez in the Royal Highland Centre, Edinburgh, on November 11.
His departure from taekwondo coincided with what may be called his second age, that of a teenager. ‘I was a decent footballer, played at a good level with Musselburgh Windsor. We won a Scottish Cup. But I was losing interest in taekwondo and football.
‘I got into some street fights. I never caused trouble but there were stupid fights. I got picked on because I was small but I never backed down. I had a fiery temper and that competitive streak, and I needed to get into something to keep me fit,’ he says.
He went to a boxing class at Meadowbank, where his mother worked, and the lad from Prestonpans found a new world lying at his feet.
‘I almost kicked somebody in the head in the sparring because of the taekwondo. It took a number of weeks to lose that instinct. But I knew the fundamentals. I knew how to punch and how to get away from people,’ he said.
He won a Scottish title in his seventh fight and went on to have a fine amateur career, competing in the Olympics and winning Commonwealth Games silver and golds at Delhi and Glasgow respectively.
He turned professional in 2015. He has not so much entered his third age but marched into it. At 26, Taylor has compiled a 10-0 winning record and is viewed as a world champion in the making, not least by his manager Barry McGuigan, who knows intimately what is required to be the best.
‘I have always believed in my ability, I have always believed I will be a world champion. It is a matter of working and achieving it,’ adds Taylor. The Vazquez fight is a major step in that quest. It is one that requires some deliberation.
The 30-year-old Mexican held the IBF lightweight world title from 2010 to 2014. His 11-year career contains 39 wins and five losses. He has never been stopped.
Taylor, who will be defending his WBC silver super lightweight title for the first time, is preparing for a long night. His training camp began in London in early September. It is a regime of two sessions a day from Monday to Friday, one on a Saturday and a day of rest. He has a punching session every day followed by weights, circuit training or sprints. The first block was undergone in London and Taylor talks of a simple regime: ‘Train hard. Go back to flat. Go to bed. Wake up. Train hard…’
In London, he stays with other fighters from Cyclone Promotions in a flat owned by trainer Shane McGuigan.
‘We occasionally go out for a meal,’ he says. ‘But it has to be clean.’ This is boxing parlance for eating well. There is no complaint about the rigour of the regime. Taylor is a boxer who relishes training and keeps himself in shape between camps. The training also satisfies, indeed hones his competitive instincts. He has regularly been in the gym with such champions as George Groves and Carl Frampton and, while the Scot watches with respect, he also competes with relish.
‘I would see what they were doing and I would try it, too. But mostly I would always try to match them in what they did and how long they did it for. It was very intense in the gym,’ he says.
Taylor brings this level of seriousness to the ring but there is an element of satisfaction, even elation, in going to his work in the most merciless of arenas.
‘I have no fear,’ he says of that moment when he steps through the ropes. ‘But there are nerves. My behind can be twitching like a rabbit’s nose. I don’t want to be humiliated. I want to win all the time. The nerves keep me on my toes. It keeps me alert, sharp.
‘The better the opponent is going to be, the better I am going to be because I have to prepare harder. I like to fight people who can give me a hard time. I can give them one back. That’s what I love. The challenge.’ The ring, though,
is a place of fulfilment. ‘I feel good in there. I used to get uptight. I was sort of angry. I fought with emotion. That means you are not fully in control and you can get tight,’ he explains. ‘Now I know I can fight, I know I can hurt people. I can enjoy the moment. Enjoy stepping into the ring with all that noise. I lap it all up.’
He has learned much from his manager and from accompanying Frampton when both fought in Las Vegas.
The Northern Irishman lost in the top-ofthe-bill contest against Leo Santa Cruz but Taylor not only won his bout — the only time he has not stopped an opponent — but learned much from his close relationship with both his stablemate and his manager. ‘I watched how Carl handled everything that surrounds a big fight. That rubbed off on me,’ he insists.
His manager, too, is constantly advising him. ‘Barry is a great mentor, in and out of the ring,’ says Taylor. ‘He has been there and done it. He knows everything a fighter goes through. The training is tough. You can be happy one day and down the next. He understands that.’ Taylor addresses those moments with calls to his girlfriend or to his family. ‘It soon passes,’ he continues. The swirling anticipation of a big fight also blows away any feelings of negativity. ‘I know I need to be away from home to get my mind right. It sharpens my focus. It puts the fire in the belly,’ he says. Vazquez will face this blaze on Taylor’s doorstep. The passion of the Scot, though, is accompanied by a purpose that is so chilling it invites a shiver. ‘Vazquez has been in my thoughts since the moment the fight was announced. The whole camp is geared to the way I am going to fight him whether it be pad work, tactics, whatever. We refine it so the gameplan is bang on for fight night,’ he says. Vazquez’s record shows the Mexican either wins or goes the distance, mostly both. He is wily and resilient. The expectation is that Taylor may have to go 12 rounds for the first time in his career. He is, however, reluctant to discuss precise scenarios. ‘You do not know what is going to happen until the first bell rings. You have the gameplan but it might go out the window,’ he says.
‘But that prospect of uncertainty excites me. I know I can adapt my style. I have been all over the world as an amateur and the first time you see a guy is when you step into the ring and you have to adjust immediately. It’s good to have a base plan but if it has to be adapted then it doesn’t bother me.’
There are, though, good judges who insist that Taylor has the power to inflict the first stoppage of Vazquez. The Scot’s record of beating nine of his ten professional opponents within the distance adds weight to this belief.
But Taylor admits: ‘I am never looking to stop anybody. I prepare for a hard, 12-round fight. If I catch him, the killer instinct will come in. I will jump on him. I never look for the knockout because that makes me tense up, load up and miss. Then it doesn’t come. But if I relax and use my speed, then I know I am powerful enough. When I catch him, I am going to hurt him.’
The fourth age of Taylor beckons. He has the world in his hands.