Good, bad, worse: Josh Taylor makes a significant statement

GOOD

Josh Taylor proved against Regis Prograis on Saturday what many of us have suspected for quite some time: The Scotsman is a special fighter.

Taylor didn’t dominate Prograis in an entertaining fight that Taylor won by scores of 114-114, 115-113 and 117-112, giving him two of the four major junior welterweight titles, the World Boxing Super Series 140-pound championship and a badge of honor in the form of a bloody, closed right eye. Neither fighter was able to completely separate from the other.

That said, I feel Taylor, fighting with fire, controlled the fight ever so slightly. He pushed the action most of the way, he was at least somewhat busier than Prograis, he seemed to beat Prograis to the punch more often than not and he landed more eye-catching shots to the head.

That’s why I think a score of 115-113 (which was my tally) or 116-112 for Taylor would’ve been most reasonable.

That says a lot about Taylor given the respect Prograis had going into the fight. These are the type of matchups that define a boxer, one against the best-possible opponent in his division who pushes him to the limit and he emerges with a clear victory. Impressive stuff.

A few more victories like that and Taylor (16-0, 12 knockouts) can start thinking about a trip to Canastota, New York, a few years after he retires.

Of course, we don’t know whether he’ll ever top what he did on Saturday. He said he’d like to fight Jose Ramirez to unify all the 140-pound belts next. That’s bold. Ramirez, a strong, skillful boxer-puncher, would be another big mountain to climb for the pride of Prestonpans but no one who saw Taylor’s gritty performance on Saturday would be surprised if he reached that summit.

Again, special fighter.

 

BAD

Prograis (24-1, 20 KOs) certainly didn’t have a bad night against Taylor. He essentially fought on even terms with his talented U.K. rival. But something was missing.

I kept waiting for Prograis to make some sort of statement in the fight, to do something to take charge and turn things in his favor. He never did. He had his moments – including a number of nice double jabs, many body shots and some head-snapping blows – but he never said with his actions, “This is my fight.”

The New Orleans product had trouble hitting Taylor cleanly, trouble avoiding many of Taylor biggest punches, trouble figuring out how to win the fight. He never stopped searching for a way to take control, to his credit, but he never found it.

Does that mean Prograis isn’t quite as good as we thought? Or does it simply mean that Taylor was just a little bit better on Saturday?

I believe the latter was the case. Taylor is damn good. At the same time, I think Prograis, unbeaten until Saturday, has something to prove now. He came up short in his biggest test to date, which raises questions about him that didn’t exist before.

He’ll answer those questions going forward.

 

WORSE

I’ll rail against the proliferation of “championship” belts as long as I have a forum to do so because I love the sport. Terence Crawford nailed it when he reportedly said:

“I don’t mess with no WBC ‘franchise’ belt. I don’t mess with no WBA ‘regular’ belt or ‘super’ belt. There’s only one champion, one champion in the weight and that’s it. Ain’t no ‘franchise’, no ‘silver’, none of that. I only go by the actual champion.”

I hope those who care realize that the more titles we have, the less they mean. There is a direct correlation. Is that really want we want?

Featherweight Shakur Stevenson, who has tremendous potential, defeated Joet Gonzalez to win his first major belt. How much does that mean when everyone knows the best 126-pounders, at least for the moment, are Gary Russell Jr., Leo Santa Cruz and Josh Warrington. To me, Stevenson’s belt means nothing.

Santa Cruz is scheduled to face Miguel Flores for what one sanctioning body calls its “regular” junior lightweight title. That means less than nothing.

We all have our own perspective on boxing and these belts. I, for one, always focus on the fighters, not the diluted, generally pointless titles. I’ll never accept more than one champion in each division. Seventeen is enough. And  Crawford is apparently with me.