By Mike Smith: Josh Taylor (14-0, 12 KOs) totally dominated and stopped an unwilling and fearful looking Ryan Martin (22-1, 12 KOs) in halting him in the 7th round in their World Boxing Super Series light welterweight quarterfinal fight at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland.
There was a rabbit punch that Taylor landed that hit Martin in the back of the head in the 7th round that hurt him. From there, Taylor unloaded on him to score a knockout. The referee missed the punch behind the head. He should have stopped the action and let Martin recover from the illegal punch. It was one of those things where the referee either didn’t see the rabbit punch or didn’t feel like it was an important enough issue for him to stop the action. It’s too bad referees don’t enforce the rules against fighters hitting their opponents to the back of the head. They do a good job of enforcing rules against low bows, but not for rabbit punches, which are more serious.
With the win, Taylor retains his WBC Silver 140 lb title. At the time of the stoppage, Boxing News 24 had Taylor up by six rounds. Martin never came close to winning any rounds. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
This was a disappointing fight to watch. Martin covered up mostly and failed to let his hands go. with nothing coming back at him, Taylor teed off on Martin with a lot of punches. Taylor mostly found success landing to the body, as Martin was quite good at blocking his attempts at throwing head shots.
Taylor, 27, hurt Martin in the 7th with some big shots that put him down on the canvas. The referee Victor Loughlin stepped in and stopped the fight, even though Martin didn’t look hurt. Its possible the referee decided he’d seen enough of the one-sided fight, so he stopped it. Martin, 26, looked afraid to throw punches the entire fight, and the moment seemed to be too much for him. Martin looked like he wasn’t mentally prepared to fight a world class fighter like Taylor. The thing is, Taylor didn’t look that impressive. He looked beatable compared to the recent performances from Regis Prograis and Ivan Baranchyk in the World Boxing Super Series 140 lb tournament. Those two would give Taylor major problems no matter where the fights take place.
“That was alright, wasn’t it,” Taylor proudly said after the fight. “I’m coming into my prime and that’s starting to tell in my performances. I’m winning this tournament, definitely.”
The way that Martin fought tonight, he would have lost to virtually every fighter in the top tier and many of the 2nd tier fighters. Martin wasn’t willing to throw punches. Taylor might very well lose his next fight to Ivan Baranchyk. That’s not a knock on Taylor. He looked good for the level of opposition he was facing tonight, but he did’t look as good as good as Baranchyk and Regis Prograis did in their quarterfinal victories in the World Boxing Super Series tournament.
In the 6th, Martin suffered a cut over his left eye after getting hit with a big uppercut from Taylor. Martin seemed to get motivated to finally start throwing punches after the cut opened. However, Martin went back to fighting defensively in the 7th, and he was quickly stopped.
Martin’s trainer Abel Sanchez tried to motivate him the entire fight in between rounds, telling him to let his hands go. It was fruitless. Martin looked like he was afraid, and he wasn’t;t going to throw punches no matter how much encouragement he received from Sanchez.
The official time of the stoppage was at 2:21 of round even. Had the fight continued, Taylor was going to continue to land shots at will, and Martin likely wouldn’t have made it out of the round. From the referee’s perspective, he wanted to protect Martin and he did the right thing.
Taylor will be fighting IBF light welterweight champion Baranchyk (19-0, 12 KOs) next in the semifinal of the WBSS tournament next. That’s going to be a much different opponent than Martin. The powerful Russian talent Baranchyk doesn’t need to be coaxed into throwing punches by his trainer the way that Sanchez was doing tonight. Baranchyk is a virtual punching machine, who never stops throwing punches, and he’s very heavy-handed. Taylor is going to need to try and keep up with Baranchyk’s punch output if he doesn’t want to get knocked out by him. Baranchyk stopped Anthony Yigit in the 7th round last month in their quarterfinal fight in the World Boxing Super Series on October 27.
Based off this performance by Taylor, he’s likely to lose to Prograis if he makes it to the final to face him. Prograis looks a lot better than Taylor right now in the tournament. Prograis has the power to take the judges out of the equation, so it won’t matter if he has to come to Glasgow to face him.
It’s going to be tough for Martin to come back from this performance. He took a beating, and he wasn’t ready for this level. His trainer Sanchez might want to cut his losses and move on to trainer guys with more talent. Before the fight, Sanchez had been comparing Martin to former world champion Terry Norris. Martin looked nothing like Norris tonight. Norris was always known as someone that would come to fight. He didn’t free in the spotlight like Martin did. At the same age, Norris had already been a world champion for years, and had wins over Sugar Ray Leonard, John ‘The Beast Mugabi, Meldrick Taylor and Donald Curry. Martin didn’t show anything in his game tonight that suggests that he’ll ever be as good as Terry Norris. Sanchez wants Martin to be the next Norris, but it doesn’t look possible. The 5’9 1/2″ Norris was shorter, faster, stronger and much meaner than Martin. There’s no way that Norris would have stood back and let Taylor hit him all night with shots without tearing into him and likely stopping him. Norris was clearly a better fighter during his career than what Taylor showed tonight.