Josh Taylor ranked #7 at WW

Yeah I know. I saw one of his interviews a while back and he looked terrible in it and as someone from the UK who has been around alcoholics and binge drinkers since I was a young child I'm very familiar with that drinker's face. I could be wrong but at the very least we know he likes a drink and doesn't live the life.

 

Good shout. I forgot about Harrison and it's an even more apt comparison because he's obviously Scottish too.

Binge drinking is obviously and has long been a huge part of British culture and the Scots and Irish are even more notorious for it. Even if you're a teetotaler athlete most of your mates you grew up with will be binge drinkers so you're surrounded by it, even more so up there and if you're from a small town like Taylor is.

He was out partying and drinking and not living the life for months after the JCR fight and when he was sidelined with injury and he looked terrible in that interview I saw. It's just something I suspect but even if he doesn't have a serious drink problem he likes a drink a little more than any serious athlete ever should.

He's definitely declined. You just have to watch his previous fights to see that. He just doesn't look the same fighter to me at all mentally or physically and it's not just because he's facing difficult styles. There's just something majorly off with him.

 

It's not just physical it's also mental. I've been saying for a quite a while now that I think he suffers from self-confidence issues and his tough talking mean SOB hardman routine is just his way of trying to mask that. These confidence issues manifest in his performances in the ring too. He has a tendency to tense up, not use his brain and abandon his skills when under duress and he subsequently ends up loading up on shots and it makes him more predictable, easy to read, and less effective.

He's much better when he's loose and relaxed and actually thinking about what he's doing. The thing is he's known this for a long time but he still does it often and can't seem to stop himself from doing it.

Shane McGuigan has implied he suffers from confidence issues too and that most people don't realize that a big part of being a trainer is helping fighters deal with these type of things and that it's important to have a good trainer you gel with who knows how to get the best out of their fighters. He said it was something he was very good at doing with Taylor.

Don't forget he comes from a very small town and was moved extremely quickly and became an undisputed champ in just 18 fights. I think the limelight and fighting on such a huge stage of that magnitude must be a daunting experience for him. Maybe not so much on fight night but behind the scenes during the lead up to the fight.

 

The mean SOB hardman routine is definitely his way of compensating for confidence issues IMO. Seems likes he's trying to convince himself most of all with all that bravado.

Like I said, or if I didn't I have before in other threads, I first noticed this before in fights he won. He has a tendency to load up and become tight when tenses up and not put much thought into what he's doing but when he's more relaxed and thinks about what he's doing he's much more effective and he does have good skills when he actually uses his brain and picks his shots and counter punches.

How many times have we heard fighters say that boxing is 90% mental? I don't believe the percentage is quite that high but if you've got confidence issues and your mental is not right it can undo all your talent and hard work in the blink of an eye.

This is one of the reasons I think Shane McGuigan was such a good fit for him when it comes to the psychological side of the game. He did it when he was with him but Shane knew how to deal with it better than others. And I just think Shane is a great trainer and strategist too.

I don't think he folds mentally when under pressure. He's proven many times in the past that he definitely has that dog in him but his confidence issues affect the way he fights and it's a vicious circle which prevents him from getting the best out of himself.

That being said, I think his will might be broken now due to his confidence issues and the unofficial loss in most people's eyes to Catterall and the official one to Teo who he did fold mentally against. But it was super dumb of him to fight someone as talented as Teo in his backyard coming of a long layoff, injuries and a terrible performance in his previous fight that many felt he lost.