Date | 26 February 2022 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Venue | OVO Hydro, Glasgow, Scotland | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Title(s) on the line | WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, WBO, and The Ring light-welterweight titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tale of the tape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Taylor wins via Split Decision (112-113, 114-111, 113-112) |
Josh Taylor vs Jack Catterall was a professional boxing match contested between undisputed light welterweight champion, Josh Taylor, and the WBO's mandatory challenger, Jack Catterall. The event took place on 26 February 2022, at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow. Taylor's split decision victory was controversial, with the British Boxing Board of Control launching an investigation into the scoring in the aftermath of the fight. [1]
In January 2019, Catterall was installed as the number one challenger to WBO champion Maurice Hooker. [2] After Hooker lost his title in a unification fight against WBC champion José Ramírez in July, the WBO ordered Ramírez to face Catterall in a mandatory defence. However, the WBC also ordered Ramírez to face their mandatory challenger, Viktor Postol. Ramírez chose to fight Postol with the agreement that the winner face Catterall next. Less than 48 hours after Ramírez defeated Postol in August 2020, he was again ordered to face Catterall next. [3] In October, Catterall had confirmed that he agreed to a "step-aside" deal to allow Ramírez to face unified WBA (Super), IBF, and The Ring champion, Josh Taylor, for the undisputed light-welterweight title, again with the agreement that Catterall face the winner next. [4]
Taylor defeated Ramírez via unanimous decision on 22 May 2021. [5] Days after his victory, Taylor said of Catterall, "Jack Catterall was decent enough to let me do this fight first. He's been mandatory for some time. He agreed to step aside to let this fight happen. You can see his point, there's method in his madness. If that fight's next, he's got the chance to become undisputed champion. He's made a good choice." [5]
In August, ESPN reported that terms had been agreed between Taylor and Catterall to meet on 18 December at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow. [6] It was announced by Taylor on 21 October that he had suffered an injury, and thus the fight would be postponed to 26 February 2022. [7]
A few details on the undercard were announced late January which includes a ten round bout between Robeisy Ramirez and Eric Donovan. [8] A recent new signing from Top Rank [9] will host a debut match for Kieran Molloy against an opponent yet to be named.
Despite being knocked down by Catterall in the eighth round and being seemingly outboxed by the challenger, Taylor won a controversial split decision victory, with scores of 114–111 and 113–112 in his favour, and 113–112 in favour of Catterall. According to CompuBox, Catterall landed more punches than Taylor in 11 out of 12 rounds. The challenger landed 120 of 525 (23%) total punches, with Taylor throwing and landing far fewer in comparison: 73 of 306 (24%) overall. [10] [11]
Former world cruiserweight champion and pundit Johnny Nelson stated, "It's decisions like this which turn casual fans off. Josh Taylor did not win that fight." [12] The decision was labelled as "the biggest robbery in British boxing history". [13] Irish bookmaker Paddy Power stated that they would be refunding all stakes placed by their customers on Catterall to win the bout, as it "was an absolute robbery". [14] Despite the widespread public opinion, Taylor was defiant in his post-fight interview, saying, "I don't think there is any need for a rematch... I know I won the fight." [15]
A rematch between Taylor and Catterall is scheduled to take place at the First Direct Arena in Leeds on 18 May 2024. [16] Catterall got revenge in a hard fought battle winning via unanimous decision. [17]
Weight Class | vs. | Method | Round | Time | Notes | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Light-welterweight | Josh Taylor (c) | def. | Jack Catterall | SD | 12/12 | Note 1 | |
Featherweight | Robeisy Ramirez | def. | Eric Donovan | TKO | 3/10 | 1:04 | |
Heavyweight | Nick Campbell | def. | Jay McFarlane | TKO | 7/10 | 2:18 | Note 2 |
Featherweight | Kurt Walker | def. | Jaroslav Hriadel | TKO | 1/4 | 2:03 | Note 3 |
Light-middleweight | Kieran Molloy | def. | Damian Esquisabel | TKO | 2/6 | 0:33 | Note 4 |
Welterweight | Paddy Donovan | def. | Miroslav Serban | TKO | 6/6 | 0:56 | |
Featherweight | Mark McKeown | def. | Engel Gomez | PTS | 6/6 | ||
Super-welterweight | Bilal Fiwaz | def. | Malam Varela | TKO | 3/4 | 3:00 | |
Super-bantamweight | Ebonie Jones | vs. | Effy Kathopouli | Draw | 6/6 | ||
Cruiserweight | Scott Forrest | def. | Erik Nazaryan | TKO | 2/6 | 1:08 | Note 5 |
^Note 1 For WBA (Super), WBC, IBF, WBO, and The Ring light-welterweight titles
^Note 2 For vacant Scottish Area heavyweight title
^Note 3 Walker's professional debut
^Note 4 Molloy's professional debut
^Note 5 Forest's professional debut
Country | Broadcaster |
---|---|
United Kingdom | Sky Sports |
United States | ESPN |
The World Boxing Council (WBC) is an international professional boxing organization. It is among the four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO).
The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is the oldest and one of four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO). The WBA awards its world championship title at the professional level. Founded in the United States in 1921 by 13 state representatives as the NBA, in 1962 it changed its name in recognition of boxing's growing popularity worldwide and began to gain other nations as members.
In boxing, the undisputed champion of a weight class is the boxer who simultaneously holds world titles from all major organizations recognized by each other and the International Boxing Hall of Fame. There are currently four major sanctioning bodies: WBA, WBC, WBO, and IBF. There were many undisputed champions before the number of major sanctioning bodies recognizing each other increased to four in 2007, but there have been only 19 boxers to hold all four titles simultaneously.
Julius Munyelele Indongo is a Namibian professional boxer. He is a former light-welterweight world champion, having held the WBA (Regular), IBF, and IBO titles between 2016 and 2017. As an amateur, Indongo represented Namibia at the 2008 Olympics, reaching the first round of the lightweight bracket.
Santos Saúl Álvarez Barragán, commonly known as Canelo or Saúl Álvarez, is a Mexican professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes, from light middleweight to light heavyweight, including unified titles in three of those weight classes and lineal titles in two. In 2021, Álvarez became the first and only boxer in history to become the undisputed champion at super middleweight, holding this distinction until July 2024. He has also held the Ring magazine super middleweight title since 2020.
Boxing in the 2010s includes notable events about boxing which occurred between 2010 and 2019. The decade saw high intensity action in the welterweight division. The match between veterans Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao broke PPV records. The broadcast of the fight in the Philippines was watched by nearly half the country's households. Mayweather retired at a record 50-0-0 while Pacquiao became the first eight division champion. The middleweight division saw immense action in the later years of the decade. After a draw in 2017, Canelo Alvarez ended Gennady Golovkin's long reign in 2018. The heavyweight division was dominated by Klitschko brothers before Wladimir's loss to Tyson Fury in 2015. Other talents that emerged were Anthony Joshua, Deontay Wilder and undisputed cruiserweight champion Oleksander Usyk.
José Carlos Ramírez is an American professional boxer. He is a former unified champion at light welterweight, having held the World Boxing Council (WBC) title from 2018 to 2021 and the World Boxing Organization (WBO) title from 2019 to 2021. As an amateur he represented the United States at the 2012 Olympics.
Amanda Serrano is a Puerto Rican professional boxer and mixed martial artist. As a boxer, she is the unified featherweight world champion, having held the WBO title since 2019, IBO title since 2021 and the WBA title since 2023. She held the IBF title between 2022 and 2024. She is the only female, and Puerto Rican, to win world titles in more than four weight classes, and holds the Guinness World Record for the most boxing world championships won in different weight-classes by a female, having held 9 major world titles across seven different weight classes.
Josh Taylor is a Scottish professional boxer. He is a former undisputed light-welterweight champion, having held the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Association (WBA) titles between 2019 and 2022, the World Boxing Council (WBC) title between 2021 and 2022, the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) title between 2021 and 2023 and the Ring magazine title between 2019 and 2023. At regional level, he held the Commonwealth light-welterweight title from 2016 to 2017. As an amateur, he won a lightweight silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and light-welterweight gold at the 2014 edition.
Robeisy Eloy Ramírez Carrazana is a Cuban professional boxer who held the World Boxing Organization (WBO) featherweight title between April 2023 to December 2023. As an amateur, Ramírez won gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics.
Terence Allan Crawford is an American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in four weight classes, from lightweight to light middleweight, including the undisputed championship at light welterweight and welterweight. He has held the World Boxing Association (WBA) light middleweight and World Boxing Organization (WBO) interim light middleweight titles since August 2024.
Viktor Vasylovych Postol is a Ukrainian professional boxer who held the WBC light-welterweight title from 2015 to 2016.
Teófimo Andrés López Rivera is an American professional boxer. He has held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the World Boxing Organization (WBO) and Ring magazine light welterweight titles since 2023; previously he held the unified World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF), WBO, and Ring lightweight titles between 2019 and 2021. Lopez has also held the lineal championship at lightweight and light welterweight.
Regis Prograis is an American professional boxer. He held the World Boxing Association (WBA) super lightweight title in 2019, and the World Boxing Council (WBC) super lightweight title from 2022 to 2023. As of November 2023, he is ranked as the world's second best active super lightweight by the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board, and third by BoxRec and The Ring magazine.
Jessica McCaskill is an American former professional boxer. She is a former world champion in two weight classes, having held the undisputed, IBO and Ring female welterweight titles; the WBC female super-lightweight title and the WBA female super-lightweight title. She also challenged for the WBA lightweight title.
Jack Catterall is an English professional boxer. He challenged for the undisputed light-welterweight title in 2022. At regional level, he has held multiple light-welterweight championships, including the British title from 2017 to 2018.
José Ramírez vs. Josh Taylor, billed as Undisputed, was a unification professional boxing match contested between WBC and WBO champion, José Ramírez, and WBA (Super), IBF, and The Ring champion, Josh Taylor. The bout took place on May 22, 2021, at the Virgin Hotels in Paradise, Nevada. Taylor defeated Ramirez via unanimous decision to become the undisputed light welterweight champion.
Anthony Joshua vs Oleksandr Usyk, billed as The Perfect Storm, was a professional boxing match that was contested between WBA (Super), IBF, WBO, and IBO heavyweight champion, Anthony Joshua, and former undisputed cruiserweight champion and the WBO's heavyweight mandatory challenger, Oleksandr Usyk. The bout took place on 25 September 2021 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with Usyk winning by unanimous decision.
Boxing in the 2020s is a list of notable fights and events in boxing during the decade from the year 2020 to 2029.
Regis Prograis vs Josh Taylor, was a professional boxing match contested between WBA (Super) and WBC Diamond light-welterweight champion, Regis Prograis, and IBF light-welterweight champion, Josh Taylor, with the vacant The Ring light-welterweight title also on the line. The fight was the World Boxing Super Series: light-welterweight final, with the winner receiving the Muhammad Ali Trophy. The bout took place on 26 October 2019 at The O2 Arena, with Taylor winning by majority decision.