Josh Taylor is resentful of his WBO mandatory Jack Catterall for getting a straight shot at his four light welterweight titles without doing the hard work he’s had to do.
For Taylor (18-0, 13 KOs) to round up his four straps at 140, he had to beat Ivan Baranchyk, Regis Prograis, and Jose Ramirez.
Those weren’t easy fights for Taylor, especially his match against Prograis in October 2019. Taylor took a pounding in that fight and was fortunate to get the victory. Prograis dominated the entire second half of the contest once he took the fight to the outside.
“It has been years, my whole life, dedicated to this. Collecting these belts,” said Taylor to Sky Sports.
“I have cleared out the division to acquire them, but he is coming along, thinking he can get them in one fight.
“It makes me angry that he is getting a shortcut when I had to do it the hard way.”
Taylor is going a little overboard by saying he’s “cleared out the division” because he hasn’t.
There are a half dozen talented fighters that Taylor hasn’t fought that could give him a lot of trouble. Regis Prograis would be a nightmare for Taylor now, as he knows his weakness from their previous fight.
Taylor lacks hand speed and doesn’t have a great outside game. He can be beaten to the punch on the outside, as we saw in the second half of his fight with Prograis.
Catterall has largely beaten domestic and European level opposition, and shockingly, he’s now the WBO mandatory for Taylor without ever beating one top-tier opponent.
Ideally, Catterall should have had to fight one or two of these killers in the WBO 140-lb title eliminator: Jose Zepeda, Jose Ramirez, Subrial Matias, Regis Prograis, or Shakhram Giyasov.
Instead of Catterall needing to fight those guys to get a title shot against Josh Taylor, he’s beaten these cannon fodder fighters: Ohara Davies, Abderrazak Houya, Timo Schwarzkopf, and Tyrone McKenna.
As you can see, Taylor has a reason to be hopping mad at Catterall. While he had a difficult road during his career, Catterall was given the easy path with his title shot falling into his lap like an apple from a tree.
The boxing public could be the losers on Saturday night, as the Taylor-Catterall match-up could be as competitive as Taylor’s title defense against his IBF mandatory Apinun Khongsong in 2020.
Like Catterall, Khongsong hadn’t beaten anyone talented during his career, yet he was installed as the mandatory challenger for Taylor.
The result wasn’t pretty. In the first round, Taylor blasted out the hopelessly unprepared Khongsong in a total wipeout. As you would guess, Khongsong hasn’t been heard of since.
It’s likely to see the same scenario playout out on Saturday night unless Catterall has a good chin and can absorb punishment.
Taylor: “You’re going to get a pasting, mate. How are you feeling?”
Catterall: “I’m alright. Really good. This has been a long time coming.”
Taylor: “You’re going to go crumbling down. Are you going to fight or run?”
Catterall: “I’ll fight. Let’s have it.”
Taylor would have done the boxing world a favor if he’d vacated his WBO title so that he wouldn’t have to waste a fight in a mismatch against Catterall.
Fans would be better off if Taylor used this fight to take on one of the talented 140-lb contenders like Zepeda, Prograis, Matias, Ramirez, or Giyasov. Fighters that can punch, and who would have given Taylor a lot to think about.
Catterall has no punching power, and his ONLY way of winning is to try and outbox Taylor. That’s not going to happen, which is why there’s not much interest from boxing fans in this fight.
They know it’s a mismatch, and it doesn’t matter that Taylor is making a big deal about the fight.
