Taylor escapes with split decision over Catterall, retains undisputed 140 title
Suffers first knockdown of career and says he's probably going to move up to welterweight
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Josh Taylor got knocked down for the first time in his career and was decisively outpunched but came back strong over the final few rounds and was awarded a controversial split decision victory against Jack Catterall as he retained the undisputed junior welterweight championship in a homecoming fight on Saturday at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland.
With a sold-out crowd of 12,101 cheering wildly for him, Taylor was draped with all four of his title belts after escaping with the win. Two judges, Ian John-Lewis (114-111) and Victor Loughlin (113-112), scored the fight for Taylor and judge Howard Foster had it 113-112 for Catterall. Had Loughlin scored the 12th round for Catterall, he would have won the split decision.
Catterall, the WBO mandatory challenger for about two years, had stepped aside to allow Taylor and Jose Ramirez to meet to unify all four belts last May in Las Vegas with the promise that he would get the first shot at the winner. He got it and turned in a career-best performance despite the official defeat.
Making his fourth overall title defense and first of the undisputed crown, Taylor promised to give Catterall a beating during the build to the fight, which was initially scheduled for Dec. 18 but postponed in late October after Taylor suffered a knee injury in training.
But Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs), 31, came nowhere close to giving fellow southpaw Catterall (26-1, 13 KOs), 28, the beating he promised and was fortunate to retain the championship.
Taylor acknowledged his less-than-stellar showing but said he still felt like he won the fight.
“I started a little slow but once I grabbed the momentum I started catching him with the bigger shots. He was trying to spoil a lot. Going down and up a lot and clashing my head,” Taylor said. “He caught me with a couple of good shots. I’m not gonna lie to you. It wasn’t my best performance. I put a lot of pressure on myself with it being my homecoming. Been three years, first time (fighting at home) since lockdown and all that. I put a lot of pressure on myself being the heavy favorite and it showed in the first half of the fight.
“Once I got my rhythm I started catching him with the bigger shots and catching him and catching him. It wasn’t my best performance but I believe I got the win 100 percent. But Jack did very well.”
Catterall made his presence known immediately when he landed a powerful left hand in the opening round that stunned Taylor. Catterall landed the left throughout the fight and it was the shot that gave Taylor the most problems.
There was a lot of holding and rough inside fighting, which caused referee Marcus McDonnell to halt the action on several occasions to admonish the fighters. McDonnell’s constant interference, however, seemed to go beyond what was called for and significantly disrupted the flow of the fight.
Catterall seemed to pile up points in the early rounds and also damaged Taylor when an accidental head but opened a cut under his right eye, which was swelling, in the fifth round.
He continued to land left hands on Taylor, including in the eighth round when one dropped Taylor about 45 seconds into the round. Taylor got up quickly and shook it off.
McDonnell warned both fighters about holding throughout the fight and finally docked one from Catterall for the infraction in the 10th round and called timeout to lecture the fighters.
He shockingly took a point from Taylor after the 11th round for tapping Catterall in the belly with his glove as he walked back to the corner. It seemed like Taylor was simply letting Catterall know, hey, good round, but McDonnell did not see it that way.
According to CompuBox statistics, Taylor landed 73 of 306 punches (24 percent) and Catterall landed 120 of 525 (23 percent), including outlanding him in each of the first seven rounds. Overall, Catterall landed 81 power shots to Taylor’s 57.
“I put a lot of pressure on myself to put on a good show for my home fans, but it didn’t matter in the end. I got the good result,” Taylor said. “I knew I won the fight. It was close. Overall I scored the bigger shots, the better shots, the more meaningful shots so I know I won the fight. It was a little bit close but I know I won the fight.”
Catterall did not do an in-ring interview after the fight and bolted the arena a little while later without attending the post-fight news conference.
“He put up a good fight, that’s for sure,” Taylor said of Catterall. “But he never won the fight and he knows he never won the fight. Second half of the fight I started taking over. We got the win and that’s it.”
Asked about the prospect of a rematch, Taylor was not interested.
“I don’t think there’s any need for a rematch. I think I won the fight. I won the fight by a couple of rounds,” he said. “I won the fight in the second half of the fight, took over and bossed him. He held a lot of and was going a lot of spoiling.”
Even if Taylor wanted to have a rematch, he has four belts and other mandatory defenses to deal with. Next up in the mandatory rotation would be WBC challenger Jose Zepeda. But the way Taylor was talking, he is probably headed up to welterweight.
“I made the weight very well but it is getting harder to make that weight,” Taylor said. “That most likely will be my last fight at 140. But we’ll sit down with my team. I started preparations a little late for making the weight because of injuries and stuff. So, I was a little late taking the weight off because I couldn’t run with the knee injury.
“But I still made the weight and I still performed. We’ll sit down with my team, but most likely that will be my last performance at 140.”
Last perhaps, but certainly not best.
Photos: Mikey Williams/Top Rank
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This fight raised more questions than it answered. For instance, is Marcus McDonnell an even worse referee than Laurence Cole?
Another atrocious set of scorecards from BBBofC judges who are proving themselves just as incompetent or corrupt as their US counterparts.
Jack Catterall clearly won the fight and Josh Taylor has gone down in my estimation by claiming he won the fight so no rematch is needed and coming out with the weight issue excuse for his poor performance.
A true sportsman would have accepted he got away with this win due to bad judging and would have expressed some sympathy for Jack Catterall who has been robbed of his world title after ten years of hard work and for all we know may never actually become a world champion now.
I hope Jack puts in an appeal to the sanctioning bodies, however the damage is done and the judges probably won’t be punished in any way for their scorecards.