Josh Taylor Seeking to Become World Champion at Welterweight
It’s now been three months since former undisputed super lightweight champion Josh “The Tartan Tornado” Taylor (19-1, 13 KO’s) competed in the ring. During that last contest, Taylor suffered his first professional loss to Teofimo Lopez. To salt the wound a bit further, the Irish pugilist was the favorite over Lopez who was a relative newcomer to the division. Yet, after a bit of self-admitted sulking, Taylor is ready to get back to action.
When the dethroned champion does next slide into the right though, there is an excellent chance that he will do so as a welterweight. While Taylor was unwilling to explicitly voice any specific reasons for his rather lackluster outing, The Tartan Tornado most certainly heavily insinuated that the weight was a factor in his one-sided loss. And as he told Boxing Social, this was the primary reason underlining his desire to leap up in divisions.
“There were a few factors there as to why there’s a bad performance, but it is what it is, there’s no excuses. And if I did have excuses, I wouldn’t give ’em to you . . . I made the weight good but it’s obviously doing something to the performance, maybe getting recovered after the weight . . . I feel like I am still on top of the game but in terms of achievement wise and motivation wise and setting new goals and targets is to move up in weight and become a two weight world champion!”
TIME FOR A CHANGE
Only time will tell how Taylor fairs during his tenure at 147 once he enters those new dangerous waters. Nevertheless, assuming that he can regain his old form and winning ways, this could be a great opportunity. At the moment, Terence Crawford is the undisputed champion and therefore holds all the titles. Despite this fact, Crawford seems rather intent on facing the winner of Jermell Charlo versus Saul Alvarez. Yet, these potential fights would happen either at 154 or 168 pounds.
So, if Crawford gets his way, he will be leaving the division probably sooner rather than later. Therefore, if Crawford does abscond away from his 147-pound kingdom, then his titles will be loosed and up for grabs. Given his name value and past accomplishments, it wouldn’t take a large leap of imagination to see Taylor provided favorable welterweight rankings. As a major player, he could very likely challenge for one of those scattered titles somewhat quickly. Only time will tell how it all plays out. So stick close to 3Kings Boxing to find out what his next move will be and the domino effect of that decision.
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