Seeing how horrible Taylor looked tonight it's more than likely he will vacate the belts and move north to 147 pounds. Here are rankings of the four sanctioning bodies. WBA 1 Alberto Puello. 2 Ismael Barroso. 3 Ohara Davies. 4 Sandor Martin. 5 Batyr Akhmedov. WBO 1 Jack Catterall. 2. Liam Pero. 3 Teofimo Lopez. 4 Arnold Barboza Jr. 5. Jose Zepeda. WBC 1 Jose Zepeda. 2 Jose Ramirez. 3 Regis Progais. 4 Sandor Martin. 5 Teofimo Lopez. IBF 1 Jeremias Ponce. 2 Subriel Matias. 3 Liam Pero. 4 Shohjahon Ergashev. 5 Regis Prograis. Ponce and Matias will square off for the IBF belt. Zepeda will probably face the winner of Ramirez/Pedraza for the WBC belt. WBO probably the winner of Lopez/Barboza against Catterall (shame that Jack has to face another Top Rank guy for a title shot), and the WBA has Puello and Barroso, two fairly average guys to face for their title. Obviously Prograis and Martin are in the mix for eventual title shots. Plus Liam Pero, but who gives a rats ass about him?
I agree that Taylor looked bad tonight but so did Koysta when he lost to Vince Phillips. So did Pedroza early on in his career. Both are in the hall of fame and Taylor still has a good chance of making it as well. Folks need to pump the breaks a bit and realize that one bad performance doesn't define a career. I believe both Catterall and Taylor will be better fighters after today. I do appreciate how Taylor responded to being outboxed early. He new he was losing and responded like a champion in the championship rounds. He came roaring back and took the fight to Catterall late. Too me, he behaved like an undisputed champion.
The big news here is that we must protect our children from this new psychedelic drug invented by the WBA for use in their ranking orgies. It's not such a bad division it's just these rankings.
