FLOYD Mayweather, Oscar de la Hoya, Julio Cesar Chavez, Kostya Tszyu, Terence Crawford. And the rest. It is quite a catalogue of names which Josh Taylor is endeavouring to break into as he steps up his quest to become the WBC super lightweight champion of the world this weekend.

But can any of them also lay claim to have been a junior British Taekwondo champ and a teenage Scottish Cup winner with their local amateur football side Musselburgh Windsor, not to mention being pretty nifty behind the controls of a motor bike? No, I thought not.

Taylor’s glorious amateur boxing career, which harvested a Commonwealth gold and silver medal, not to mention Olympic appearances, is well-known. So too is his fast rise through this division, since turning professional and throwing in his lot with Irish fight legend Barry McGuigan’s Cyclone Promotions. To date, he won all 12 of his pro fights, only one of which hasn’t got the distance, bouts which have seen him collect the Commonwealth and WBC Silver belts.

But the fact that he hadn’t set put in a boxing ring at all until the age of 15, until his mum, who worked at the Meadowbank Leisure Centre, pointed him in the direction of Scottish fight legend Alex Arthur, makes for an even better story. Not least because this Hibs supporter could even have turned out as a Hearts star had he been successful in a trial match as a teenager.

“I had done the Taekwondo for ten years, I had got all my belts, had been British Champion and I just wanted something new, a new challenge,” Taylor told the Sunday Herald. “Boxing was something new, fresh and exciting and I loved it.

“I won the Scottish Cup at football as well, back when I had played with Musselburgh Windsor too. So I guess now I am looking for a world title at boxing to go and complete the hat-trick.

“I was pretty good at football,” he added. “ I had a trial with Hearts and stuff like that, but again I just kind of lost interest and the boxing took over.

“Maybe I could have been a Hearts legend! I was sort of left mid but sometimes I played on the right side as well. I could cut in and whack it in on my left foot. I raced motorbikes too, moto cross. I was just a really sporty kid.”

Will any of this alternative sporting hinterland help him when it gets back to the nitty gritty of his world title fight eliminator against Viktor Postol – the Ukrainian who has already been on that list of WBC super lightweight champions – at the SSE Hydro on Saturday?

“The Taekwondo maybe helped me with balance, and taught me to move my feet quickly,” he said. “But mainly I have always just been really competitive at everything I do.

“Every time I went into that ring, I had the hunger, the desire, the determination, the ‘I am going to knock your head in’ kind of thing. I had that in abundance when I was young. That competitiveness, that will of win.

“So any time I had to fight I had that, naturally. But I never thought I would be on the cusp of a world title fight. I never ever thought I would fight at a Commonwealth Games, go and win a gold medal. I never thought I would go to the Olympics and I never thought I would be in this position today.”

With his usual extensive sparring all done, mostly against new Cyclones recruit Chris Kongo and rangy Earsfield amateur Connor Marsden, Taylor feels as fit as he ever has as he prepares to return north of the border for fight week tomorrow. With a shot at current title holder Jose Ramirez of the USA on offer for the winner - perhaps in one of the most illustrious venues in the fight game - it hardly needs re-stating that this is a huge fight for both men. Postol, a Wladimir Klitschko lookalike who also had an extensive amateur career to look back on, has lost just one of his 30 professional fights to date – when he surrendered this belt against the imperious Crawford back in 2016. And even that was on points.

Barry McGuigan, the Scot’s manager, said two weeks back that Taylor could be the first man to stop him, and thankfully the 27-year-old doesn’t demur from that assessment.

“I do think I can stop him,” said Taylor. “If I catch him, I know I will jump all over him. I have had loads of great sparring and I am feeling really good.”

Taylor has done his homework, particularly when it comes to Postol’s dangerous jab, but is more concerned about what he can bring to the party. “I have watched a bit of his fight against Terence Crawford fight, he had some success in that fight and was struggling at other times, and the Lucas Matthyse fight, but I am more concentrating on myself and what I am going to. We have a plan for how we think the fight is going to go but it is never easy to say entirely until you get out there. One of my strengths is being able to adapt, if I do have to change things up in the course of a fight.”

A week of pre-fight activities will further whet the appetite for the contest, but if Taylor’s personal sales are anything to go by it should be some night. “To be honest, I don’t really know, my girlfriend is dealing with it, she is selling the tickets,” he said. “But I’ve probably personally sold something in the region of £60,000 in tickets. That’s about 400 or 500 tickets, maybe more.”