By Charles Brun: Fresh off his victory over Regis Prograis last Saturday, IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Josh ‘The Tartan Tornado’ Taylor says he wants to take advantage of his pulling power to have his next fight take place in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Unless Taylor has in mind to make a defense of his two titles, it may prove difficult to lure WBC/WBO light welterweight champion Jose Ramirez (25-0, 17 KOs) to come to the UK to face him.
Taylor beat WBA 140-lb champion Prograis (24-1, 20 KOs) by a 12 round majority decision in winning the World Boxing Super Series tournament at the O2 Arena in London. The victory gave the 28-year-old Taylor the Muhammad Ali Trophy, and made him the IBF/WBA light welterweight champion.
The fight that Taylor wants now is against Ramirez). He’s popular in Southern California, and he fights well when in front of his home fans. Giving that advantage to fight Taylor in Scotland is going to be a big ask. It might better for Taylor’s promoters to consider staging the fight with Ramirez on neutral ground somewhere.
Taylor wants next fight in Edinburgh Castle
“Now that I’ve got the titles I do think I’ve got a bit of pulling power with where the next fight’s going to be,” said Taylor to skysports.com in talking about wanting to have his next fight take place in Scotland.
“I would really, really love it to be in either Edinburgh Castle in the middle of the summer or at Easter Road [home of Hibernian FC]. The fight I want next is to go for all the belts against Jose Ramirez. He’s got the other two belts,” said Taylor.
Asking Ramirez and Top Rank to bend over backwards to accommodate Taylor’s wishes is wishful thinking. However, Top Rank fighter Vasiliy Lomachenko recently agreed to fight Luke Campbell in London last August. So there is a chance that Top Rank might agree to let Ramirez fight Taylor in the UK, but it won’t be surprising if they reject that idea. Lomachenko was a huge favorite against Campbell. Ramirez will likely be the underdog against Taylor.
If Taylor and Ramirez can’t agree on a location, then it might be best for Josh to go in another direction. A rematch against Prograis is an option. Their fight was highly exciting with Taylor edging it by the scores 117-112, 115-113 and 114-114.
Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn says he would like for Taylor to fight Lewis Ritson next in the UK. That would be a good stay busy fight for Taylor, but obviously there are much better opponents available to him than Ritson. That fight would be a huge step down from the level of opposition Taylor has been fighting in the WBSS tournament.
