After watching Taylor's performance last night

I think it was due to a number of different factors combining. Everything I mentioned and Catterall's horribly awkward octopus spoiler style played a part too. Catterall, as I warned he was, was better than advertised but everything about JT was just badly off too. We've seen his level drop and neglect his skills before due to not being relaxed. It's happened in numerous fights but he always manages to loosen up eventually and turn it around.

I've made this observation before about him underperforming and neglecting his skills due to not him being relaxed but last night there was zero sharpness, zero fluidity, poor accuracy, and very little variety to his work and he just looked super tense and flat all night and just way below par in every facet.

 

Many of the aforementioned had their own issues to overcome but JT looked off before he even climbed into the ring and the fight was lost before he even climbed into the ring and he wasn't able to perform at anywhere near his best due to what happened prior to entering the ring. I could sense something was off with him and I had a bad feeling about the fight for weeks.

Hand on heart, and I'm not trying to imply I'm some kind of psychic here, I had this image of him hitting the canvas in this flash through my mind a bunch of times during the final few weeks leading up to the fight and my gut-feeling kept telling me he was going to really struggle and possibly lose. That's not some psychic power it's due to me picking up on certain things from his body language and demeanor and all the aforementioned factors

People keep ignoring the fact he's been on an incredibly steep learning curve, far steeper than virtually everyone else and all their favs. He was moved far too quickly and matched extremely tough from very early in his career and he's been learning on the job fighting a much high level of opposition than all of his peers from very early on in his career sans a few others, Loma and Usyk most notably.

The vast majority of fighters would have very tough nights if matched as aggressively against the level of opposition he has so early in their careers and most would've already tasted defeat by that stage too if not been KTFO.

 

Where's the evidence of Beterbiev wanting to go 12 amd look flat while doing so? The a much simpler explanation.... sometimes fighter's have an off night, especially when coming off of a long layoff, or extenuating circumstances like illness and/or injury and/or bad weight cut. Taylor had all three.

 

Yes, Beterbiev looked flat as hell and significantly below par after coming back from injury and Covid, but Taylor looked even worse when coming back from the same and in addition to that he was as tense as hell all night and looked deathly ill and skeletal at the weigh in and it was clearly a way worse version of him than the one we've seen in every single one of his previous fight and anyone who denies that is being very disingenuous.

Difference is I don't hold that against Artur or act like it was in any way, shape or form him at his best and I acknowledge the reasons why he looked so flat and below par.

 

McGuigan is the best young trainer in the sport and one of the best period IMO. I would feel very comfortable and have zero reservations about any of my favs hooking up with him and there's not many trainers I can say that about. He has a very astute boxing brain and is a great tactician.