Josh Taylor has called for a rematch with Jack Catterall – but insists he’s going to call the shots from now on.
The Tartan Tornado lost the last of his world titles when he was beaten by Teofimo Lopez in New York last month. Taylor, 32, reckons he went into that contest too soon after a foot injury and should have delayed it. But the Prestonpans ace says he’s got his hunger back now that he’s hunting for titles rather than defending them.
And he’s already eyeing up his next outing in the autumn – but only if the terms suit him. He said: “I’ll be out before the end of the year again, hopefully October or November time. 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 this week to Liverpool, 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, things that didn’t go my way. I went into the fight when I maybe shouldn’t have. I should have delayed it four or five weeks.
“But I just wanted to fight. I’d been out of the ring long enough. Now I just have to get straight back on the horse. I’m still the best in the business, believe it or not! If anything, it’s taking all the pressure off me. I can now relax and enjoy boxing again. I can get back to being the hunter and not the hunted.
“That’s where I’m better, when I’m the hunter and back being hungry again. I can be the underdog again and that’s where I’ll thrive.”
Taylor still expects to move up a weight division to fight at welterweight at some point But he reveals he definitely WILL take on Catterall at some point to finally settle all the bad blood between the pair after their contentious first meeting last year. Taylor added: “We’ll see what options are there and what fights I get offered whether at 140lbs or 147lbs.
“The Catterall fight will be getting revisited again hopefully sooner rather than later. I want it again, just to shut most people up. That will definitely happen again before I retire, that’s for sure. If I stay at 140 then my next fight isn’t going to be a championship fight so it won’t be championship weight anyway.
“That will work in my favour. But I can still make the weight. I made the weight in New York perfectly, better than at any time in the last few years. So the weight wasn’t an excuse. We’ll see what happens going forward whether it’s at 140 or 147 or switching between the two.
“Unless I get someone like Regis Prograis who still wants his rematch as well. That could be another title fight at 140. I need to speak to promoters to see what fights are out there and what’s going to be offered to me. I’ve already had half a path carved out for the route we’re going to take when I move up to 147. So we’ll speak to the lads and the promoters and see what’s happening.”
