Latest news with #undisputed champion
The Independent
a day ago
- Sport
- The Independent
The rare career of Josh Taylor showed the privileged burden that boxing can bring
It is not going to be easy for Josh Taylor to walk off into the boxing sunset after a remarkable career inside the ropes. It was also a brutally short career, a rare career in British boxing; it was unusual because of the speed, the relentless hard matchmaking and the success. Taylor, who is now 34, is the only British boxer to have held all four of the accepted and respected belts in the modern era of a sport packed with division and false claims. In a business where men – it is different for the women – often have 20 or more fights before finally getting a chance at a world title, Taylor held a version of the world title after just 15 fights. He had been a professional for less than four years at that time. In British boxing history, the world champions have been seasoned by years of learning their trade and being used as part of a bargaining system by promoters and managers. Taylor broke with tradition, altered the expected path of boxers and in just his 18th fight, he held all four of the belts. He was Josh Taylor, undisputed champion. World champions like John Conteh in the Seventies, Alan Minter in the Eighties, and Lennox Lewis in the Nineties served typically extended apprenticeships, featuring for long spells on undercards and waiting for an opening, waiting for a chance. Conteh won his world title in his 27th fight, Minter his 43rd fight, and Lewis in his just his 23rd. Lewis had the benefit of two Olympics as experience, including the gold in Seoul, but still danced slowly down the well-trodden and careful path. It was a path that Taylor seemed to reject; he was ready to be fast-tracked by the time he became a professional boxer. Taylor had two Commonwealth Games medals and had been to the Olympics in 2012 when he finally turned professional in 2015. He had stayed after the London Olympics to compete and win a gold at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. He was the unofficial mascot for the Games, used in adverts, and his face was plastered all over Glasgow and Edinburgh. It was a privileged burden and one he comfortably repaid. He had hard fights early on, winning the Commonwealth professional title in just his seventh fight when he stopped Dave Ryan, a noted hard man, in the fifth round in front of a devoted flock in Edinburgh. The real fights were getting closer for Taylor. The bigger wins followed: unbeaten Ohara Davies ruined in seven in 2017, former world champion Viktor Postol given a boxing lesson in 2018, and the unbeaten and dangerous Ryan Martin stopped in seven. All three fights were in Glasgow; Scotland had a boxing hero. Postol had just lost to the great Terrence Crawford – Taylor possibly did a better job. This was not a hype gravy train. In 2019, also in Glasgow, Taylor met the IBF light-welterweight champion, Ivan Baranchyk, who was 19-0 with 12 knockouts; Taylor won on points, he had his first world title, but the boxing world was about to shrink. The run continued, the darkness of Covid was coming. Taylor fought six unbeaten men in a stunning consecutive sequence, including five in world title fights; he unified the titles, fighting in front of a sold-out O2 in London when he beat the fancied Regis Prograis in late 2019. Prograis was the WBA champion. It was a stunning fight, contender for Fight of the Year. Prograis was shell-shocked at the end – it should have been the fight that transformed Taylor, made him a star, but his next fight was nearly a year later and behind closed doors at York Hall in front of less than 50 people; Covid hit hard and few in boxing suffered more from the fallout than Taylor. It robbed him of momentum and a chance to win all four belts in front of an outdoor crowd in Scotland. That is the harsh reality. Taylor travelled under too many radars during this exceptional sequence because of the Covid restrictions. It was a cruel twist, a twist as cruel as the eye injury that forced him after just 23 fights to walk away last week. 'I have certainly not had the best of luck,' he said, and he is right. He won his first world title in May of 2019 and lost the last of the four belts he owned in June of 2023; he fought just four times in the middle during a four-year spell when, under different circumstances, he could have become a major star. In 2021, he went to Las Vegas to fight Jose Ramirez; all four of the recognised belts and the Ring magazine belt were on the line; Ramirez was unbeaten in 26, but he was dropped twice and lost. Taylor had become the undisputed world champion in just his 18th fight. There were just a hundred or so in the Virgin complex on the night to witness history. None of Taylor's family and friends could be there. The bad nights followed, including last year, when Jack Catterall avenged a heavily debated loss to Taylor from 2022. In May of this year, he lost for the third consecutive time when he was narrowly beaten by Ekow Essuman. The eye injury was there; the end was near. Taylor will not make an easy traveller, but he will go off into the horizon with a spectacular legacy. The first and only undisputed British world champion in modern boxing. That is, trust me, enough.
BBC News
4 days ago
- Sport
- BBC News
'My world caved in' - Taylor on forced retirement
For any athlete who has reached the top of their sport, saying goodbye can be the hardest part. When that decision is taken out of your own hands, it becomes harder still."It's just been like my world's caved in," Josh Taylor tells BBC Scotland two weeks on from the devastating diagnosis that brought his boxing career to an immediate halt.A routine eye exam following defeat by Ekow Essuman in May showed extensive damage. An initial scan found a tear in the retinal tissue behind Taylor's left eye, but a closer examination found there were actually six. The specialist laid it out plainly - continue boxing and you risk going Tartan Tornado enjoyed a career few fighters could dream of - a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, an Olympian and, in 2021, becoming the first - and so far only - male fighter from the UK to win four belts in a single division to become undisputed world consecutive defeats in his past three bouts, Taylor did not want his storied career to finish on a losing note and had hoped for "one or two more fights", but the potential loss of his vision in one eye put paid to thoughts of a fairytale ending. The sudden transition from active fighter to former boxer has been tough to process."I'm feeling quite down in the dumps, to be honest," said the 34-year-old. "I've had two weeks to absorb it, but the more I think about it, the more upset I get."I know I've sort of completed the game in a sense in terms of becoming undisputed champion, but not going out on my own terms, it was kind of like a kick in the teeth."It was kind of like falling straight off the edge of a cliff. I'm not going to risk losing my sight for the sake of just one more fight. But it was like the end of my world." 'Heart-warming response softened the blow' Elite athletes often speak of the difficulty of transitioning out of the sport that has defined them for most of their life. The structure of a training schedule, the lofty goals to aim for and everything that drives them on a daily basis, it all disappears speaks incredibly honestly, and with visible emotion, about "the slump" he is experiencing since he was told his boxing career was has provided solace in this tough period is the mountain of messages, from fans and fellow fighters alike, paying tribute to the Scot for his magnificent achievements since he publicly announced his retirement on Monday."The messages of support that I've had has helped me, helped lift me cause it's made me feel a little bit better, made me feel appreciated, made me feel that I've done good in the sport," he says."I've had a lot of great messages from some high profile names and just my friends and people I haven't heard from in a long time."For the last few years I've had nothing but hate with every single post that I've written, there's always a section of the comments that there's just hate and stuff like that. I think this is the first one in the last two or three years that I've not had any."So the response has been quite heart-warming and made me appreciate what I achieved, kind of softened the blow a little bit and it's cheered me up a little bit. So I'd like to say thank you to everybody that's taken time to message me." 'Someone that wasn't afraid to be great' Taylor admits his diagnosis perhaps "saved me from myself" - a fighter will always want to the future now holds for the boy from Prestonpans who conquered the world is open to some punditry work and with his direct, unvarnished honesty, he would seem tailor made for will go back to where it all started, Lochend Boxing Club, to help out his friend and mentor Terry McCormack, inspiring the next generation. "Maybe we'll find the next Josh Taylor", he day he might even open his own gym in East Lothian. He has a lot left to give to the sport, even if his own time under the lights has now come to an how would Josh Taylor like to be remembered?"I don't know, I've never thought about it," he says."They're going to remember me any way they want, but I would like to hope they thought I was an all-action kind of fighter and wasn't afraid to take a fight."Someone that come up and took on all challenges and wasn't afraid to try to be great."Just a fighter."
