WBC Silver Super lightweight champion Josh Taylor admits he is desperate to bring big-time boxing back to Scotland.
The 27-year-old from Prestonpans is due to take on the experienced Ukranian fighter Viktor Postol at Glasgow’s Hydro Arena next Saturday in a WBC world title eliminator fight. The bout with Postol is shaping up to be Taylor’s toughest test of his professional career to date and a win is likely to be a pivotal moment for the former Commonwealth Games gold medallist.
Taylor has been tipped by many to become Scotland next boxing world champion, following in the footsteps of his compatriots Ricky Burns and Scott Harrison. Taylor is desperate to dispose of Postol next weekend and bring another world title fight to these shores and he is optimistic that by helping to raise the profile of his sport, he can inspire more kids in this country to try their hand at boxing.
“It would be brilliant - it would bring the big nights back to Scotland again, obviously they’ve kind of dwindled away since Ricky lost his titles,” said the Edinburgh fighter, who has won all twelve of his pro fights to date.
“If I was to win this fight it would bring big time boxing back to Scotland; back to Edinburgh; back to Glasgow.
“I’m fully confident I’m going to win the fight, in fact I am going to win the fight and once I get past this hurdle it can mean great things for young kids in Edinburgh and Scotland looking for inspiration.
“It can give them drive, so I think it’ll be great.”
Taylor is under no illusions as to how tough a task defeating Postol will be, with the Ukranian’s only loss from his 30-bouts coming against the celebrated American Terence Crawford two years ago.
But Taylor, who is going from strength to strength under the watchful eye of trainer Shane McGuigan and manager Barry McGuigan in his training base in London is adamant that he will have enough in his locker to stop the 34-year-old.
Speaking to fighttalk.net, he added: “I’ve got the youth, the speed, the timing, the power, the ability, the desire - I have everything to beat him. But it is the hardest fight in my career and it’s a massive step up for me.
“The guy’s fought at the top level for a number of years now and I’ve got nothing but respect for him. At the same time - I’m going in there to prove a point.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here