Josh Taylor, British boxing’s very own undisputed world light-welterweight champion, has had a hugely unlikely rise to becoming one of the world’s elite pound-for-pound fighters.
The Scottish southpaw, currently ranked as the fifth best pound-for-pound boxer in the world by Ring magazine (above the likes of Errol Spence Jr, Vasyl Lomachenko and Tyson Fury), only switched from taekwondo to boxing at age 15.
He went to the London Olympics in 2012 but while gold-medal winners Anthony Joshua, Nicola Adams and Luke Campbell emerged as stars, Taylor lost his second-round bout and turned pro without any fanfare in 2015.
In the seven years since, Adams and Campbell have retired from boxing altogether, while AJ is licking his wounds and rebuilding from a second professional defeat.
Taylor, meanwhile, has climbed to the top of the mountain, unifying all four alphabet world titles and defending them against England’s unbeaten Jack Catterall in what will be a raucous OVO Hydro in Glasgow on Saturday night.
For Taylor, it must feel like Groundhog Day. Incredibly, his last six opponents (including Catterall) have been undefeated before facing the ‘Tartan Tornado’ – a combined 133-0 record.
But Taylor has blown past five of them, and counting, with a combination of spite and skill to take his own record to 18-0 (13 KOs).
It’s a rise as quick as Taylor’s chopping left hand. This was a boxer who turned pro on the undercard of a stay-busy Carl Frampton fight staged, bizarrely, in El Paso, Texas.
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Five years ago, Taylor met Ohara Davies for the Commonwealth title in what was viewed as a hard-to-call bout between UK rivals – but while Davies is still at domestic level, his KO conqueror Taylor is rubbing shoulders with the likes of Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford at the sharp end of pound-for-pound lists.
However, while the likes of Joshua and Fury, or old rivals Amir Khan and Kell Brook, are among the most famous faces in British boxing, Taylor could walk down most streets in the UK and not get a second glance.
The 31-year-old’s Cinderella story from unheralded prospect to the planet’s No 1 at 140lb – toppling two dangerous Americans in Regis Prograis and Jose Ramirez – has not grabbed headlines.
In part because Taylor isn’t a heavyweight, did not become an Olympic star on free TV and has fought on a variety of platforms so as never had the hype machine of a Sky Sports (who are showing Saturday’s fight) consistently behind him.
Not that Taylor needs the feeling he’s underappreciated to fuel his competitive fire. The boxer jokingly refers to himself as “Hank” in the final weeks before a fight – a reference to Jim Carey’s rage-filled alter-ego in ‘Me, Myself and Irene’.
While some fighters are able to grin, Manny Pacquiao-style at the weigh-in but still turn it on on fight night, others – like Taylor – need to generate real aggression towards their opponents.
They have to become the nastiest, most confrontational version of themselves to perform as they need to when the first bell rings. “That’s the nature of the game, it’s the hurt business,” says Taylor matter-of-factly.
It isn’t always pleasant to watch, particularly when Taylor was taunting the likeable Ramirez pre-fight. But it does explain how he has come through so many hard nights, winning challenging fight after challenging fight. Because Taylor simply does not switch off or come into any contest poorly prepared or under-motivated.
The light-welterweight laughed when this writer once suggested that Prestonpans, just outside Edinburgh and by a scenic stretch of Scotland’s coastline, is an unusual area for a world champion to emerge from.
“My background wasn’t no ghetto or anything like that,” he said. “But you really had to look after yourself or you got picked on; you got beat up. It was a very tough, fighting man’s area. There was a working man’s club, a miner’s club and everyone there were fighting men… Everybody was fond of a bit of friendly violence.”
It’s the unfriendly kind of violence that Taylor will be looking to wreak on mandatory challenger Catterall this weekend, who displayed his own inner “Hank” by grabbing the champion’s throat at their weigh-in.
It will not necessarily be easy. ‘El Gato’ is 26-0 (13) KOs and a southpaw, like Taylor, a relatively rare occurrence which can make for unusual fights.
The common opponent between them is Davies and while Taylor stopped him in seven, Catterall got a narrow decision win. But this is the biggest shot of the Chorley boxer’s life and he has had Taylor on his mind for well over a year.
The steep rise in Taylor’s success given his origins may seem surprising but his style can be deceptive. You might expect a 5ft 10in, southpaw light-welterweight who can pick his punches with precision to be a backfoot technical master.
Instead Taylor, who can fight going forward or backwards, often prefers to negate his own reach advantage and get in close, working on the inside with crisp hooks and a dangerous uppercut.
He has power in either hand and while his last fight against Ramirez, when he won all of his division’s remaining world titles, went the distance it was the two heavy knockdowns Taylor scored in the middle rounds that decisively swung the contest his way.
Taylor also dug in and adapted to beat Prograis and that is the threat the 28-year-old Catterall faces: even if he does find a way to get on top, his opponent has plenty of experience at turning the tide.
Finding another level is something Taylor has built his career on. If he comes through Saturday’s title defence, he may think on the fact that he’s cleaned out 140lb and decide to test the waters at welterweight.
That talent-stacked division contains not only Taylor’s fellow pound-for-pounders, Crawford and Spence, but two of the hottest prospects in boxing in Vergil Ortiz Jr and Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis.
Taylor has discussed the Crawford fight several times and he would undoubtedly start as an underdog against one of the best boxers of modern times. But it would be unwise to write Taylor off at any point: exceeding expectations has been the story of his entire career.
