Taylor-Baranchyk And Inoue-Rodriguez Weigh In And Face/Offs...

Common opponent (fought Taylor in the amateurs) Anthony Yigit's take on the fight

This content is protected

 

Josh Taylor – The Motorcyle Diaries

‘The fighting instinct takes over when people try to intimidate me. There seems to be a switch in there.’ Josh Taylor tells John Dennen how his ‘wee man’s syndrome’ has fuelled his rise to world title level

JOSH TAYLOR tends to a motorbike. He maintains it, cleans it, starts it up to keep it running. But he won’t ride it. Not until his boxing career is over.

“It’s not worth risking your career that you’ve been working hard for,” he said. “You might get knocked off, break your wrist, break your arm, break your shoulder or break your leg. That’s your career.”


“I still have got a motorbike but I haven’t been on it for about two years now,” he added. “I’ve put the bikes away until the boxing’s finished.”

Some of his earliest memories involve motorbikes. He’s been riding them since he was a child. As he grew older he began to compete. “I raced motorcross myself. I was pretty good. I just never had the money to be really competitive,” he recalled. “It’s just never ending, it’s a never ending money pit. Guys at the top end have got sponsored bikes, maybe two or three bikes and a lot of money behind them and teams giving them stuff. You just can’t compete with them.”

But he notes, “I was pretty good. By the end of the season I was getting top fives in a field of 40. So I was doing alright, I think I got a couple of thirds on a standard engine. I think I only had my suspension done and that was it. Because I was so light the suspension was too hard for me… I was getting top fives and top threes out of a field of 40 bikes, so I was doing alright.”


These were thrilling events. “It’s not like a grid set up like in Formula One, in motorcross you’ve got a line and it narrows down into the first corner. You’ve got 40 bikes in a line going into the first corner so that can be quite daunting,” he said. “But at the same time going as fast as you can and jumping the big jumps, it’s adrenaline, adrenaline and the only thing that comes close to that rush is boxing and that’s the same kind of rush I get in boxing, the same adrenaline. You get the fear. You get the nerves. You get the excitement all in one and it’s just a great feeling, you know, it’s brilliant.”

Back then Taylo was a small, angry man. Before he got into boxing he was a 15-year-old weighing less than 48 kilos. He was tiny. Growing up in Prestonpans, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, he remembered, “I had what you call ‘wee man syndrome’. I used to stick up for myself. I wouldn’t let people bully me or anything.”

“You had to look after yourself. If you got picked on, you had to look after yourself,” he said. “I never had any big brothers or big cousins look after me and I was the tiny one in my year as well so… I would always find myself in wee scraps.”

“I had to defend myself because they thought it was easy pickings because I was so small,” Taylor said with a smile. “If I got knocked down I’d get back up and say let’s go again, let’s go again, until I won. I always did that.
“Guys would [think] I’m not fighting him again, I’ll be fighting all day.”



He has grown, into a leading super-lightweight contender, but he still has that edge. The ‘wee man syndrome’ isn’t too far from the surface. In his last contest for instance, his opening bout in the World Boxing Super Series, Ryan Martin, who lost tamely in seven rounds, appeared to sense it. Taylor said, “I’m not scared of anybody. I don’t think intimidation tactics work on me. The fighting instinct takes over when people try to intimidate me. It doesn’t work. There seems to be a switch in there.”

The machinations of Ivan Baranchyk’s team in the build up to their May 18 clash for the IBF super-lightweight title at Glasgow’s Hydro have also drawn his ire. It is a World Boxing Super Series semi-final so should essentially have been a done deal. But the Belarussian’s manager publicly distanced his fighter from the event before reconciling with the Super Series. Taylor takes a dim view of such antics.

“When I do get in there and if I hurt him, I am going to jump on him and I really will punish him for this.

I really will look to be doing a number on him. If I hurt him, I’ll jump on him and I’ll try and put him away,” the Scotsman said cheerfully. “You can’t sign up to a tournament and a contract, then win a title then decide you’re not playing anymore. You can’t do that.”

“It’s completely ridiculous,” he continued with intent. “To a lot of people he’s a coward [but] it seems to be his manager’s playing all the games and doing all this stuff, you know, trying to pull him out and not wanting to come to Scotland and all that carry on. But I think it’s tough tattie, as they say in Scotland. You’re going to have to. You signed up to it, you’re going to have to come. It’s been a little bit frustrating not knowing what’s going on. But the goal stays the same. Train hard. Work hard. Spar hard and get as fit as I can, as strong as I can.”

Taylor is also unimpressed with the conduct of Regis Prograis, who boxes WBA super-lightweight champion Kiryl Relikh in the other Super Series semi-final this weekend. “He kind of irritates me a wee bit. His arrogance. His cockiness becomes arrogance. I don’t think it’s confidence, it’s arrogance,” Taylor said. “He calls himself a world champ and he isn’t a world champ and he walks about with his two belts over his shoulder.

“I could call myself the Silver world champion for f**k’s sake. I’m not world champion because [Jose] Ramirez is [the WBC] world champion. So why is he calling himself world champion? But he isn’t.”

Taylor’s sole focus is on becoming a genuine champion, winning one of the major world belts. He expects to do just that on May 18 fighting for the IBF title. “I really do think I’m going to win this tournament and I do think I’m going to win this belt in this fight and I think I’m going to do it in style,” the Scotsman says. “[Baranchyk] can box and keep tight but eventually he’ll come forward and throw his big swinging punches and get wild.

“It’ll suit me but if he tries to box me, it’s even better. Because there’s no way he’s going to outbox me. I’m too tall for him. I’m faster than him and I think I can hit just as hard as him as well. I think I can outfight him as well. I think I can beat him in every department.

“I can’t wait. It’s my big shot at getting a title, becoming a world champion – my dream. I’ve always spoken to you about it and said I will do it. So I’m grabbing this opportunity with both hands.”

The next part of the dream would of course be winning more belts. “I’d love to become [Scotland’s] first undisputed world champion since Ken Buchanan, that would just be awesome,” he reflected. “Take the belts back to Scotland and show him them.”

Buchanan, even at 73 years old, still comes into Lochend, Taylor’s former amateur club in Scotland, to do some training. “I see Kenny a lot back home, when I go home,” Josh said. “He’s still got the moves there and he comes in and gives me bits of advice.”

“Mistakes that he’s made outside of the ring as well,” he continued. “You get all the fight stories as well. I just love listening to him… In those days they were warriors. They don’t make them like that anymore.

“They were real fighters back then.”



Real fighters take fights. It’s a lesson Baranchyk or at least his team could learn. For his part Taylor insists he would never back down from fighting anyone. Even if the peerless Vasyl Lomachenko were to step up to a fourth weight class, Taylor would gladly take him on. “He’s not got any challengers really. Mikey Garcia, that’ll probably be the one that he’ll chase I think but he might come up to 140lbs as well. I’d love to get in the ring with him,” Taylor said.

Years ago, he almost met the Ukrainian in the World Series of Boxing, the quasi-pro league for Olympic style boxers. “I was supposed to fight him in the WSB. I had to pull out because I smashed my hand up, I broke my hand against [Domenico] Valentino,” he said. “I wanted to fight him but you can’t fight a guy like that with one hand.”

It is a fight he’s thought about. “You can’t stand off him because he comes at you and changes his angles. [You’ve got to] go at him and f**king push him. Really just break him down, just go for him and keep on top of him. You’ve got to be physical with him, use the size, the strength, get on top of him and just keep breaking him down really.”

“I was up for it,” he added cheerfully. “I’ll fight anybody. I’ll fight my own shadow.”

He’s waiting to ride his motorbike again, waiting until his fighting days are done. But he loves the thrill of boxing. Beyond winning multiple titles, becoming undisputed or being hailed the next great Scottish fighter, Taylor just wants to see how far his talent can carry him. “I just want to become world champion and be the best that I can be. I’m not interested in topping anybody else’s records,” he says. “I just want to be world champion and see how far I can take it.”

 

'I am a warrior': Ivan Baranchyk interview

Hungry, It’s a word Ivan Baranchyk uses several times during our interview and it aptly describes the powerhouse eastern European fighter’s desire for fistic glory, as well as his constant quest for self-improvement.

“I believe I’m the best super lightweight out there,” the 25-year-old states in a matter-of-fact manner that, as I later learn, contains the odd dash of mischief. “I am hungry and well motivated. I am a warrior and always fight until the last drop of blood.”

It’s a chilling statement of intent from a boxer whose ripped physique and brilliant physical conditioning have drawn much admiration during a professional career that is still not even five years old.

Having gained valuable and regular exposure on Showtime’s ShoBox: The New Generation fight cards, Baranchyk was soon pegged as one of the up-and-coming talents of the 140lbs division.

Now, having beaten Sweden’s European champion Anthony Yigit in an exciting World Boxing Super Series quarter-final in October in New Orleans, Baranchyk will enter the final four of the tournament as the new IBF champion.

“I expected European-style boxing from Anthony Yigit, so I got the kind of fight I expected from him,” is Baranchyk’s modest assessment of the action-packed Yigit contest, in which the Swedish southpaw suffered horrendous swelling around his left eye.

Prior to his victory against Yigit, the contest for which Baranchyk was best remembered was his 2017 war with Abel Ramos, which he admits was “the toughest fight in my career”.

This 10-round slugfest demonstrated Baranchyk’s ability to give and take punishment. The fighters exchanged knockdowns in round three and frequently stood toe to toe, delivering thrilling action. Baranchyk also floored Ramos in the fourth and won the contest via unanimous decision.

It was a bout that perfectly showcased Baranchyk’s fighting philosophy, which he describes as “an aggressive style of boxing”, hence his nickname of “The Beast”, which was coined by his co-promoter Lou DiBella, who has also labelled him “the Belarusian Gatti”.

The Beast persona is one that Baranchyk positively relishes and often plays up to. When TV or video cameras are around he will frequently fix the lens with a stare, adopt an aggressive, bodybuilding-style pose and utter an animalistic snarl. (He even went through a pre-fight ritual of emerging from a cage before starting his ring walk.)

It’s also a nickname that captures his qualities as a boxer. “My main strengths are my hard punches, speed, and persistence,” he says. Meanwhile, in response to a query about what motivates him most — family, glory or money — he quips: “Everything! I will fight on [in my career] until the time I am no longer hungry to fight, while my main ambition for now is to win the Muhammad Ali trophy.”

In order to achieve this, Baranchyk will first face Scotland’s talented Josh Taylor in the WBSS semi-finals this Saturday in Glasgow.

Despite the rave reviews Taylor has received, Baranchyk seems unintimidated and unconcerned about the prospect of meeting him.

“I am very excited to be in the WBSS semi-finals. Being in the tournament is a big opportunity for me,” Baranchyk admits, before suggesting that Taylor’s dominant seventh-round stoppage of Ryan Martin in the Scot’s own WBSS quarter-final was not as impressive as many have suggested.

“Ryan Martin did not do anything to win in that fight,” Baranchyk scoffs. “I am ready to fight with Josh Taylor anywhere and any time.”

Baranchyk’s willingness to travel is unsurprising given the background of his life, which has always had something of a nomadic dimension.

Ironically enough, his story begins pretty much as far from the bright lights of big-time boxing as it is possible to get, in the far-eastern Russian town of Amursk, an industrial urban settlement built in the 1950s to provide housing for workers involved in cellulose production and the timber trade.

By the time of Baranchyk’s birth in 1993, two years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Amursk was entering a period of steep decline, both economically and in terms of a rapid decrease in population. Indeed, today the town is a decaying and somewhat grim relic of the Soviet era in an area of the country that has been termed “the forgotten east”.

Baranchyk’s family were among the many citizens who left Amursk in the 1990s, moving nearly 10,000 miles west and settling in the then nascent republic of Belarus.

Although he speaks warmly of growing up in Belarus (“I really love Belarus, my childhood there was happy and interesting”), Baranchyk identifies as Russian, stating: “I am a Russian man.” He credits his national identity with what he sees as one of his primary strengths, namely “discipline… one of the most important things for boxers”.

Baranchyk’s propensity for physical combat was established early in life. “I grew up in a family where nobody was a boxer,” he explains. “But family is one of the most important things to me. They support me all the time.

“When I was a child, I really liked to fight. I had so much energy, which had to be put in the right direction. I am thankful that my mother took me to a sports school in time. So I went to a Jiu-Jitsu class at the age of six. All the techniques I learned in the class I practiced on my classmates in school the next day!

“My friends brought me to a boxing class when I was 12 and since that time, my heart has been faithful to boxing.”
Baranchyk’s friends soon gave up on boxing, but his own passion had been ignited.

“Boxing chose me,” Baranchyk explains. “Sports is my element, and every day I work hard to reach the best results I can. I couldn’t imagine life without boxing.”

As a teenager, Baranchyk idolised Mike Tyson and adopted the former heavyweight champion’s seek-and-destroy philosophy.
Crowned world junior champion in 2009, Baranchyk turned pro in March 2014 and had three contests in Minsk before relocating to the United States, where he has fought and lived ever since.

“I signed an agreement with my first promoters in 2014 and moved to the USA straight after,” Baranchyk explains. “I really like living here. I fell in love with the USA quickly.”

Initially, Baranchyk spent three years in New York, living in Brooklyn and training under Gary Stark and Andre Rozier, gaining valuable sparring experience against the likes of Avtandil Khurtsidze and Sergey Derevyanchenko.

Then Baranchyk moved to Miami, in the Sunshine State of Florida. With its palm trees, picturesque beaches and temperate climate, which barely dips below 20 degrees centigrade even in winter, Miami offered a sharp contrast with landlocked Belarus, parts of which experience sub-zero temperatures for more than a third of the year.

After a spell under the aegis of renowned Cuban-born trainer Dr Pedro Diaz Sr, Baranchyk has now moved on again, this time to Los Angeles where he trains with Freddie Roach, who will be in his corner for the first time against Taylor.

Out of the ring, Baranchyk seems an unusually grounded man, who is refreshingly reluctant to engage in any outlandish thinking, or get ahead of himself in terms of visualising future fistic engagements beyond the immediate challenge of Josh Taylor.

For example, when I ask him what his dream fight would be, he replies: “I do not dream, I fight.”

Outside of the ring, even Baranchyk’s opponents have often spoken of him warmly, suggesting that The Beast nickname is somewhat misleading. Anthony Yigit, for example, described him to Boxing Monthly as “a very nice, very humble guy”.

Mind you, The Beast within Baranchyk is never far from the surface. When I ask him for his own take on his “nice guy” reputation he remarks, possibly with tongue in cheek: “I am not such a good guy in real life as everybody thinks!”

 

Lou DiBella on Baranchyk vs Taylor
Having spent 11 years at HBO Boxing during its pomp, and chalked up 18 years at the head of his own promotional firm DiBella Entertainment, Lou DiBella is a man whose views and insights are always worth listening to.

And DiBella is convinced that Ivan Baranchyk — who he promotes alongside Max Alperovich, Alex Khanas and Tony Holden — is the real deal.

“I’ve been with Ivan pretty much his whole paid career,” DiBella told Boxing Monthly over the phone from his New York office.

“When I saw Ivan’s amateur background, I was obviously impressed and after one fight I realised he was like a bull. He’s a tremendously entertaining, strong, power-punching kid. And remember, he’s still a young guy.”

The 58-year-old DiBella – speaking before Baranchyk moved to LA to train with Freddie Roach - credited his link-up with Pedro Diaz as having been crucial to Baranchyk’s development.

“He was a little bit one-dimensional early on in his pro career but now he’s been training with Pedro Diaz — the former Cuban Olympic coach who’s sort of a genius — Ivan’s entire game has got better.

“Here’s the thing that differentiates Ivan from a lot of guys — he’s a good learner, a very good student. Pedro realised there was a lot of work to be done, but Ivan really wanted to improve and he’s really progressed. With each fight with Pedro, he’s looked better and better.

“He’s still a devastating puncher but now he’s a much more complete fighter. His punches are much more proficient, they’re much straighter, he’s using his jab and setting up his combinations more and he’s showing better defence.

“Earlier in his career he was a little wilder, he threw big haymakers and giant shots and was knocking people out brutally. He’s still hurting people and stopping them but he’s a much more well-rounded and complete fighter.”

DiBella feels that Baranchyk’s WBSS quarter-final victory against Anthony Yigit was the most complete performance of his career so far.

“That’s the best he’s ever looked,” he said. “Yigit is a world-class fighter, a terrific boxer and a tough kid, with as big a heart as you can find in the game, and Ivan dismantled him. He really tore him apart. It was a tremendously impressive effort.”

DiBella sees Baranchyk’s impending showdown with Josh Taylor as a clash between two of the best young fighters in the world.

“When you’re fighting against a guy like Josh Taylor, I’m not going to make any predictions,” he cautioned. “But anybody that’s thinking Taylor is going to have an easy time is not paying attention.

“I think Taylor is one of the best young fighters out there but I also think Baranchyk is one of the best young fighters out there. It’s going to be quite a fight. Probably Ivan has never fought anybody who is as complete a fighter as Taylor, but I definitely don’t think Taylor has ever fought anyone as good as Ivan.

“I think it’s going to be a gruelling, really tough fight for both guys. But I think it could be the kind of fight where it doesn’t really hurt either fighter’s stock, that’s how good I think both of them are.”

While DiBella coined Baranchyk’s 'Beast' moniker, he says it doesn’t reflect the fighter’s out-of-ring personality.

“Ivan is a sweetheart,” DiBella said. “A really nice kid. A family guy who has a very beautiful wife, who he is very devoted to. He’s a very grounded, together, stable young man. A really good person.

“Outside of the ring, he is the sweetest, nicest kid on earth but when he gets in the ring every punch is thrown with authority and bad intentions.

“Outside of the ring, very few guys are as far away from being a beast as Ivan, but in the ring, Ivan’s a beast, he really is. A strong, aggressive fighter whose intentions are to hurt his foe. He’s a handful, man! He will be a handful for Josh Taylor, and a handful for anyone.”

This content is protected

 

Josh Taylor interview

How has your training been going for the Baranchyk bout?

JT: Training’s been great. This is the last hard week of graft. It’s been brilliant. I feel good, fit, fresh and strong. I can’t wait to get in the ring next week. I’m happy the camp’s over and I’m ready to fight.

BM: Your WBSS quarter-final performance against Ryan Martin was a real masterclass. That must have give you a lot of confidence.

JT: I felt I put on a really good performance, one of my better performances as a professional. But still I think I’ve got another 20 per cent there and I feel that as the opposition gets better I’m only going to get better. I’m really confident going into this fight off the back of that win. I’m feeling really good - my momentum is really good at the minute.

BM: How did all the uncertainty, announcements and rumours surrounding Baranchyk’s apparent withdrawal from the WBSS affect you?

JT: Not at all. We kept training for Baranchyk. We knew it was going to be really difficult for him to get out, contractually and legally and with his belt. We knew it would be unlikely he could get out so we just kept training for Baranchyk. We varied up the sparring a little bit for a couple of weeks and just in case we got some taller guys in because the replacement is a Thai guy. So we varied it up for a couple of weeks but in terms of tactics and the things we’ve been working on it was the same approach as for Baranchyk.

BM: What’s your assessment of Baranchyk and the threat he offers?

JT: He’s very strong and powerful. He’s a very physical fighter. I think he’s going to come fast out of the blocks and try and put it on me from the first bell. We need to wait and see but that’s what I’m expecting. Whatever he throws at me I’m more than ready to take care of.

BM: Regis Prograis reached the WBSS final with a win against Kiryl Relikh. What was your assessment of how Prograis looked?

JT: I saw bits and bobs of the highlights, I didn’t stay up to watch it. I wasn’t overly impressed by what he did. But he got the job done, did what he needed to do and got through to the final. His head movement was good but he was in there against a guy that looked old and washed up. I heard that he [Relikh] had to lose over 40lbs to get down to the weight, he looked tired, fragile and slow.

BM: You’ve had home advantage for your first two fights in the WBSS. How do you enjoy performing in Glasgow and would you be willing to travel for the final?

JT: The fans make brilliant noise and create a great atmosphere. The Glasgow fans are brilliant so I’m looking forward to putting on a show for them [on Saturday] as well. But I’m also more than happy to travel [for the final]. I’m used to that from the amateurs and I’ve also fought as a pro away from home and home comforts. I wouldn’t have a problem going anywhere, I’d actually look forward to it.

BM: It must be exciting to be fighting the best super lightweights in the world and finally be getting a crack at a world title?

JT: Of course. I’ve basically had two final world title eliminators - [Viktor] Postol was supposed to be a final eliminator for the WBC title and we knew when this tournament came about there was the potential to fight for a world title. In fact we looked at the opposition and were rubbing our hands because we feel every one of them is beatable and I’m ready to go. The prospect of winning two belts in three fights is just magic. The normal run of things in boxing with politics and so on and what with top fighters being with different promoters and broadcasters, means the top unification fights can take years to happen and quite often the fights don’t happen due to the politics of the business. So it’s really good that I’ll be getting two world title fights back to back. It was a no-brainer going into this tournament.

BM: Also on the Glasgow card is Japanese bantamweight sensation Naoya Inoue – what are your thoughts on him?

JT: It’s a wee bit of a shame that I won’t be able to watch him myself as he’s on before me and I’ll be fully focused on the task ahead. It’s great to have Inoue here and for Scottish and British fans to get the chance to see him and operate live. It’s brilliant.