A fight that will go down in history...
Victory ensures that Taylor’s star keeps rising
IT shouldn’t happen. Logic, gravity and every other known law of physics dictates that it must be impossible.
A world champion after 15 professional fights? Holder of two world titles following bout No16? That’s something from a parallel universe.
It’s hard to put what Josh Taylor has achieved into perspective. Only a little easier to predict just where his stratospheric rise through the ranks might end.
Trainer Shane McGuigan says he’s the best in the world, laying his absolute belief in the 28-year-old bare for all and any to challenge.
Kalle Sauerland, the man who put the World Boxing Super Series together, believes the Tartan Tornado now has a claim to be among the best pound-forpound boxers on the planet.
And the Scot’s legend is spreading far beyond his homeland. The Londoners took to him at the 02 on Saturday night. While American fans watching the action live can’t have failed to be impressed.
Taking down WBA superlightweight champion Regis Prograis, a New Orleans native with a burgeoning reputation stateside, has to have enhanced the standing of Taylor — a boxer who has already fought on undercards in Las Vegas and Texas earlier in his career.
Sauerland, now without any financial interest in either Taylor or Prograis following Saturday night’s blistering WBSS final, declared: ‘That fight will go down in the history books. It was something special.
‘And it proves that the best super lightweight on the planet, bar none, no questions asked, is Josh Taylor.
‘I don’t know how they put these poundfor-pound lists together; I think that they’re drinking tequila sometimes.
‘But if Josh isn’t a contender for the best pound-forpound fighter on the planet, I don’t know who is. He’s the only Brit you would even put on that list.’
The Yanks will definitely want a piece of Taylor. If the TV execs might be tempted by Edinburgh Castle as a venue, the prospect of fighting at Madison Square Garden — virtually a home arena for Ken Buchanan during his glory years — thrills the lad from Prestonpans. One of the American boxing writers in attendance at the 02 repeatedly asked Taylor about the prospect of him becoming ‘the man’ now — the face of British boxing who can do what Ricky Hatton once did so well, taking an army of travelling supporters with him to the MGM Grand and beyond.
‘Hopefully I get the recognition I deserve now,’ said Taylor.
‘Everyone says I fly under the radar and, to be honest, I don’t mind that.
‘I’m not a show pony, I don’t act up for the cameras. I like doing my own thing. But this is going to take my profile to the next level and everyone will start getting behind me now.
‘If I get this (Jose) Ramirez fight in America, I’ll take a travelling army from home. Hopefully I get the kind of support Hatton did. That would be unbelievable.
‘I’ve no interest in being a superstar. I know the recognition and fame comes with it.
‘I think the Ramirez fight is massive and I don’t mind it being in America.’
The sheer quality of opponent Taylor has taken on and beaten, in quick succession, makes him virtually unique in the modern game.
There have been no easy bouts in the WBSS. Although it’s never easy to predict what promoters will do, there shouldn’t be any tame defences of his two world titles before he goes hunting Ramirez.
‘The last four fights I’ve been involved in have been world class,’ said Taylor. ‘Viktor Postol, Ryan Martin, Ivan Baranchyk and then this. Up until their fights with me, they’d only had one defeat between them — and that was to Terence Crawford.
‘I definitely haven’t had it easy. I’ve taken the hard fights, taking on champions and ex-champions.
‘I’ve proved that I’m the best. Hopefully everyone else now stops doubting me, saying it’s too soon, that I’m going to get chinned, all this and that.
‘Now, wherever I go, I can take an army of fans with me, take over this division — and prove that I’m the best in the world.’
A daunting mission statement. But not impossible. And we’ve seen what Taylor does with the merely improbable.