Taylor ready to take on the world
HE HAS earned his shot at the world title. And, if there are no truly easy paths to the top of boxing, Josh Taylor can claim to have taken the toughest of routes to this career-defining opportunity.
Sure, he’s only had 13 professional fights.
Wizened greybeards raised on ringside tales of backroom brutality will tell you that this isn’t enough, not nearly enough, to prove the credentials of even the most naturally gifted fighter.
For continually stepping up to each successively more daunting challenge, however, Taylor deserves more than just plaudits.
He deserves his promised showdown with WBC superlightweight champion Jose Ramirez.
Any doubt about that was erased not by the Scot’s ultimately handsome victory over Viktor Postol in Saturday night’s final eliminator, but by the threat he overcame midway through a bout that could so easily have ended in disaster.
In the seventh round at the SSE Hydro, Taylor was rocked back on his heels. He had to be worried. The men responsible for guiding the former Commonwealth Games gold medallist to this stage were more than a little perturbed.
Their boy had been caught flush on the chin by his teak-tough opponent. And he was reeling.
Barry McGuigan had already visited the corner to tell Taylor that he was ‘losing this fight’ and needed to rethink his approach.
That the 27-year-old relative novice managed to do just that after being hurt for the first time in his professional career, turning everything around to the extent he had former world champion Postol down in the tenth, explains just why so many are so excited about his immediate and longterm prospects.
The fighter himself knows that it was ‘a below-par’ performance, yet he still came close to doing something no other fighter on the planet has done — stopping Postol inside the distance.
If the knockdown had come a minute earlier in the round, instead of allowing the Ukrainian to take a standing eight-count and then see out the final seconds by desperately holding on, you would have fancied Taylor to get the job done.
‘It was a huge step for me,’ confessed the Prestonpans puncher, who had repeatedly stressed the quality of an opponent who went into this fight with just one loss on his card — and that to Terence Crawford.
‘But I didn’t feel like it was something I couldn’t handle; not once did I feel out of my depth.
‘I just had to relax. In terms of the stage, the opponent, who he was, it was a huge step up. But it was nothing I couldn’t handle.
‘If I had performed 100 per cent at my best, I do feel I could have got him out of there.
‘I feel like I am on the verge of my dream, fighting for a world title. I didn’t feel any pressure, but that was playing on my mind a little bit, thinking: “If I win this, I am fighting for a world title”.
‘But that is going to come with experience. I definitely have 20, 30 per cent more sharpness in me. I’ll show that in the big one, when I’m fighting for a world title.’
McGuigan believes victory, even if most in the Taylor camp had it by a more slender margin than the three judges on the night, justifies the rush to push this guy up the ladder.
‘That is why we make these aggressive decisions with choices of opponent,’ said the Irishman, still regarded as one of the best ever to pull on the gloves. ‘He showed what he is, a world-class fighter. I think he is the best 140-pound fighter in the world.
‘We are not interested in the interim title. This was a final eliminator; if he wins this fight, he fights for the world title.
‘We are going to be fighting the world champion next. That is what we took the risk for.
‘He knew there was jeopardy. It was a great performance, because he had to show real guts and determination.
‘I still think Josh Taylor is one of the most exciting fighters in the world. Everybody learns from mistakes and he learned from mistakes in the middle of it all. That is real class.
‘This win will have people taking note. It was a championship performance against a guy who would beat all of the other light-welterweights in the world.
‘He had to learn in the fight. I had to say to him: “Josh, you’re losing this”.
‘The first four rounds were even and, in the corner, they were aware of that. But Josh made the adjustments that he had to.
‘He has a great chin. He took a big shot in the seventh round but, within ten seconds, he had recovered.
‘Postol has a 12 knock-out record — which is a shambles because he punches way harder than that.
‘One of the knockdowns he received against Crawford was legitimate, but the other was a bundle, so Josh has equalled what Terence Crawford has done.’
The action on the undercard included heavyweight Martin Bakole beating DL Jones in just 62 seconds, while Lee McGregor won the IBF Youth Bantamweight Title in just his fourth pro bout.
‘McGregor is going to be world champion, I’m telling you,’ declared McGuigan.
‘You’ll see it when he’s in with top fighters — he’s magic.’