WBO light welterweight champion Josh Taylor has a tough title defense on his hands this Saturday night against Teofimo Lopez after sitting out of the ring for the last sixteen months.
Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs) says he can’t wait to put a beat down on the former unified lightweight champion Teofimo (18-1, 13 KOs) for some of the things he’s said during the build-up.
Teo last week that he wanted to “kill” Taylor inside the ring. With Teofimo, you got to take what he says with a grain of salt because he’s obviously just trying to create attention to the fight, but still, this is outside the limits of acceptable behavior.
Taylor has concluded from listening to Teofimo that he’s off his rocker, and he’s mentally gone at this point in his career.
Anyway, they haven’t come with the white suits to drag Teofimo away to the funny farm yet, so hopefully, he makes it to the fight on Saturday.
Teo’s last three performances suggest that he could have problems against Taylor unless he can raise his game to where it was during his best years.
Last December, Sandor Martin, a guy with moderate power, dropped Teofimo twice in a fight that a lot of boxing fans saw as a robbery. Teofimo was given the win, but he looked like he didn’t deserve it.
Taylor-Teofimo will be shown on ESPN & ESPN+ on June 10th.
“That’s why I’m in boxing to be the best version of myself that I can be and challenge myself against the best. I’m not in the sport for money. I’m in it to be the best possible fighter I can be and be the best possible fighter on the planet,” said Josh Taylor to Max on Boxing.
“Until I reach my limit, that’s when I’ll retire, but I feel like I’ve still got a lot of big fights left in me, and I do want to challenge myself against th best in the business, whether that be Terence Crawford or Errol Spence or Ryan Garcia or Devin Haney.
“These are the fights I want to be in, the big challenges and the big fights,” said Taylor.
“That kind of mentality and one of the consequences, you’re the [former] undisputed champ, undefeated,” said Kellerman. “It leads me to the question. A lot of people thought Catterall beat you, and you were supposed to beat him.
“Because of various circumstances, you haven’t got him back in the ring. Now there may be promotional issues and everything. So personally for you and how competitive you explained you are, do you need that rematch with Catterall before you leave boxing?”
“Personally, I don’t need it, but I’d like it to shut a lot of people up, a lot of naysayers up, especially on the other side of the pond. I’d like to shut them up and put him back under his rock as well.
“I don’t believe he’s a proper world-class fighter. He’s very good at slowing the pace down and being a spoiler. Having said that, he did have a good fight, but I had a very bad fight, one of the worst performances of my career and I still got the win.
“Yeah, I’d like to revisit that one and put it all to bed and move on with my career,” said Taylor.
