Former undisputed 140 pound champion Josh Taylor feels now he should have delayed his last fight, this the largely one-sided decision loss he suffered at the hands of a perhaps surprisingly good Teofimo Lopez on June 10th. Taylor lost for the first time, the “dream fight” in New York turning into a nightmare for the Scottish hero. Now, looking back as well as making plans for the future, Taylor says “there were a lot of factors in camp” that should have persuaded him to delay the Lopez fight by “four or five weeks,” but he is now aiming to come back at either 140 or 147 pounds.
“I’ll be out before the end of the year, hopefully October or November time,” Taylor told the Daily Record. “I’ll do what’s best for me. In the last two years after the Jose Ramirez fight I’ve made deals to please other people. So, it’s time to get back to being selfish again and doing what’s best for me. I’ll go down to Liverpool this week, get all my tests done, and go over what went well and what went wrong in the Lopez fight. There were a lot of factors in that camp. I went into the fight when maybe I shouldn’t have. But I just wanted to fight. I’d been out of the ring long enough.”
Taylor, 19-1(13) added how he feels he has the hunger back, that being the underdog is where he will “thrive.” The 32 year old says he will look at what offers come for fights at both 140 and 147, with “The Tartan Tornado” saying he may switch between the two divisions. Taylor still has unfinished business with Jack Catterall, against whom he scored a hugely controversial decision back in February of 2022, while Taylor says a return fight with Regis Prograis could also happen. Taylor beat Prograis, the current WBC champ at 140, in an excellent fight back in October of 2019, and that’s one fight we fans would like to see again.
Taylor needs to get back to his best, however, if he can do so. It’s quite some time since Taylor looked great in a fight, this back in May of 2021 when he defeated Ramirez to become four-belt ruler at light-welterweight. Did that fight see Taylor peak, with only one place do go, with that being down? Or did Taylor simply have two bad nights in a row with the Catterall and Teo fights? It can happen.
Taylor, big for the 140 pound division, might be doing the smart thing if he does move up to welterweight. Can Taylor become world champion again? Let’s not write him off just yet.