Catterall’s revenge win over Taylor was nearer than scorecards stated
Bob Arum had a point. Josh Taylor wasn’t awarded enough of them.
Whoever you thought won Saturday night’s grudge rematch – and the majority opinion favours Jack Catterall as deserving of his revenge – it was a close fight.
Much closer than the gaping margins on the unanimous cards of the official judges.
Arum, the legendary US promoter of Scotland’s Taylor, was among the minority when claiming that his man had won. But his rant about the margins of Catterall’s victory was valid.
Two cards of 117-111 were, as Arum put it: ‘Absolutely ridiculous.’ The third, at 116-113, was nearer the mark but still wide of reality.
Revenge was sweet for Jack Catterall as he celebrates his unanimous win over Josh Taylor
But their contest in Leeds on Saturday night was closer than the judges’ cards suggested
Taylor’s promotor Bob Arum was enraged at the margin of victory given to Cattrall
Watching through the fish-eye lens of television is not the ideal way of scoring a fight and certainly would not provoke an argument here if Catterall had been proclaimed the winner by one or two points.
Nor am I much of a fan of the computerised method of counting punches landed, which happened to record Taylor narrowly ahead at the end.
Sometimes one or two punches thrown in combinations can be too quick for the eye and the finger prodding the buttons.
Controversy does not rage over this lively fight as heatedly as it did after their first meeting, when howls of protest greeted Taylor being on the right end of a split decision despite being knocked down.
Yet this does bring into the boxing debate, once more, the quality of judging.
Arum proclaimed: ‘I will never bring an American fighter to the United Kingdom after this.’ His implication being that Catterall benefitted from home-country judging in Leeds.
Actually, there was a whiff of a different kind of influence this weekend. One reminiscent of the two fights against Evander Holyfield which ended with Lennox Lewis becoming the undisputed world heavyweight champion.
Catterall’s record stands at 29-1 and there will now be a clamour for a decisive third meeting
This bout had no belts on the line and was postponed twice following Taylor’s foot injury
When Holyfield escaped with a draw from their first fight, which most observers thought Lewis had won comfortably, the furore mushroomed from Madison Square Garden into a US Senate investigation into the state of boxing.
As they moved on to Las Vegas for the rematch, Holyfield shrewdly observed: ‘After what happened in New York I will have to knock Lennox out to get the victory here.’
Sure enough, the judges felt obliged to vote for Lewis even though Holyfield looked to have done enough to win on points.
If history has repeated itself, it is to the detriment of Taylor. The man from Prestonpans did not endear himself to the public when he insisted he deserved the original decision in Glasgow. Nor again this weekend, although he was less bullish in that assertion in Leeds.
Even so, he is being denied the respect his career deserves. It seems to be forgotten that when Taylor first burst onto the scene he was anointed by Ken Buchanan as the heir-apparent to the throne of Scottish boxing.
Taylor continues to be denied the level of respect that his impressive career truly deserves
A prophesy he fulfilled as the only Scot to emulate the great man’s feat of becoming an undisputed world champion.
He did so as the first UK fighter to become undisputed in the four-belt era and only the fifth in the world in any division after Bernard Hopkins, Jermaine Taylor, Terence Crawford and Oleksandr Usyk.
At 33 the Tartan Tornado may have subsided into a strong wind during his first two defeats, by Teofimo Lopez and now Jack Catterall, but those two still have a long way to go if they are to match Josh Taylor’s achievements.
Which include triumphs over a sequence of truly elite boxers during his reign as king of the light-welterweights.
