I knew Josh Taylor wasn't all that when..

In so many words, yeah, you did.

 

...paging Kelly Pavlik...

 

It's always funny to see the same morons pick the low hanging fruit when a fighter who routinely takes on the best opposition and loses some fights. The Prograis fight was a brutal fight both guys in their prime both took a lot out of each other that night. They can't all be undefeated cherry picking diva's.

 

Yes. 3 good fights. Then ass kicking by decent opposition.

 

You've proven my point. Prograis was a B level boxer at best. Beating him in his "prime" doesn't get you a medal, a line in boxing history or into the HOF.

 

Yes it does plenty of worse fighters than Taylor in the HOF.
At the time Taylor and Prograis were both considered A level fighters.

 

True, at the time. But know he know better, we have more information about both boxers.

There must be nationalism at work here. That's the only reason I can see people hanging on his nuts. His record doesn't deserve the accolades other wise.

So now all a guy has to do is win 3 or 4 bouts against non-HOFers, gran a belt, lose versus the best men he got into the ring with, all the time while trash talking arrogantly night and day and that makes him a HOFer.

18-4 (he lost twice to feather fisted anti-warrior Catterall).

 

Really ? 1 fight did that to both of them ? Are you sure it's that ? Perhaps Prograis was just overrated

 

Haney would beat any version of Prograis as much as I hate to say it, he always had slow feet. Let's be real here, someone like Hitchins would take Prograis lunch money. Matias would be a very dangerous fight for Taylor

 

He was a good fighter but overhyped like crazy on this forum. He was the top dog in a weak division.

 

Taylor accomplished a lot more in less than 20 fights than some hall of famers do in their whole career.
Tough fights consistently back to back will cause a quicker burn out. Taylor was red hot from about 2017 to 2021 and wouldn't have been out of his depth against any 140 pounder in history. The expectations from some fans on here are just ridiculous. Taylor was an exceptional fighter in his prime. The hype and praise was totally warranted.

 

This isn’t an unpopular opinion at all and has been discussed many times before. He earned everyone's respect because he became undisputed the hard way and was willing to have a shootout in just about every bout. I have said before that almost his entire game was setting up power shots to the head and body, a lot of the time abandoning defense to do so. That worked with his size advantage, but you can't really do that against quick boxer with good movement (Teo), or against someone who knows how to pause the action of a fight (Catterall). Also, since he never really had one punch ko power, he needed to maintain a decent output throughout a fight. That high intensity style doesn't work when you’re a drinker who blows up in weight between fights. His sudden decline wasn’t too shocking. Even with a patchy resume though, getting every belt as quickly as he did made him an elite fighter.

 

Could say the exact thing about a fighter like Fernando Vargas he had a good early run but when he stepped up got his ass handed to him by two welterweights.