Josh Taylor: The Scottish Winds Are Violently Wailing-Brace Yourselves For The Tartan Tornado.

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Apparently it's real according to the article I read about it, just that particular type of wrestling though.

 

Rougarou's a cool guy and really good fighter but I immediately knew he was going to list a bunch of cities in the US when he said the final should be somewhere ''neutral.'' Virgil Hunter did exactly the same when he reeled off a list of ''neutral'' locations for Ward vs Bute to take place.

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I automatically assumed it was fake too but the blood looked a bit too real to me so I decided to have a brief read up on it and much to my surprise it turned out to be real lol

 

Apologies in advance if Sky Sports haven't made this available to watch in the US

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Is that viewable for you CST?

 

lol OK thanks, so I've been posting all these fight vids but they're not viewable in the US

That said, I do think it's really cool that Sky, BT Sport, PBC etc. are uploading fights onto YT quite often now and Sky and BT are doing it the following day with some of them too.

 

Oh well lol

Big Frank is a scholar, a gent, an OG, and a philanthropist lol

 

Anthony Yigit: ‘Josh Taylor will shock Regis Prograis’

Since his gory eye injury in a losing IBF title fight with Ivan Baranchyk, Swedish super-lightweight Anthony Yigit has been rebuilding. He fights Siar Ozgul on Friday at London's York Hall

How have you been rebuilding and recovering since the Ivan Baranchyk fight?

Well, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing – rebuilding. Because obviously in that fight you get, I wouldn’t say exposed but when you fight top class fighters, they utilise some of your weaknesses. And when you watch back that fight, you see those weaknesses yourself and you know, you found ways to work on them. And that’s what I’ve been doing. For the past year I’ve been working on developing whatever it is I feel I’m lacking a bit, you know, in terms of both strength but also speed footwork and also moving, and I think I’ve done that quite all right. Hopefully now on Friday [June 28], I will be able to showcase it.

What kind of weaknesses did he uncover?

Our plan was to tire him out and from there take over. But the problem that I had was in the beginning, the game plan was for me to move around, box him, but he was swinging quite wildly, and I didn’t want to get hit by those swings. Because even though they hit my guard, they hurt quite a bit. So I felt I felt it more secure to go in-fighting with him, because then he wouldn’t be able to swing as much and he wasn’t as good in the in-fighting. You know, he likes to go forward. He likes to punch but as soon as you come in close to him, he can’t really box there. That’s the way I felt. And so I felt more secure in there. And I also thought that I will break him down and as the rounds go, I will take over. And we felt like that’s where I was getting. The problem was that I was taking too much punishment in the beginning. So my eye got swollen up.

Maybe that game plan would have worked if I didn’t take as much punishment. So we are trying to take less punishment and deal more pain.

Did you notice he was more powerful than people you’ve fought before?

You know, as soon as he connected, I felt like these are really hurting, like these are hurting bombs, because the way he was punching like, it felt like someone’s hitting you with a cannonball. While I’ve fought other strong fighters before but their punches are more like spears, like penetrating. So it’s two different kinds of pain.

His was more like cannonballs. They’re easy to dodge, as long as I saw them coming they didn’t hurt as much.

Did you realise how bad the injury was?

No actually, because if you watch the fight, I’m actually telling the doctor that I can go on and I can keep fighting because I just thought it was a normal swelling. But it looked really bad. And my coach actually said stop complaining because it looks bad. So when I went down to the locker room, that’s when I saw it. And I was like, oh, okay, so maybe it was for the best.

Why did you take this fight (against Siar Ozgul on Friday, June 28, at York Hall in Bethnal Green)?

First of all, I always had a dream of fighting London. All my mates have fought in London. He’s also Turkish just like [me]. And I thought that was quite interesting. Because as far as I know two Turkish professional fighters have never fought each other ever. So it’s a little bit of making history in that sense. I like to have fights that are in some way intriguing or interesting. And I think this is one of them, at least for the Turkish fan base and I think his fan base but also my fan base back in Turkey. Turkey is gonna be showing this fight. Yeah, it’s an interesting fight. And that’s why I want to take it. This is no pushover you and that’s what I want. I want a great fight.

Do you hope to build towards a fight with Josh Taylor (the new IBF champion)?

Definitely. He’s now fighting [Regis] Prograis for almost all the titles, and I’m aiming for the title. So definitely.

How do you see Josh Taylor versus Prograis (in the World Boxing Super Series final) going?

I think Taylor will win that one and, to be honest, I think quite comfortably. I haven’t watched too much of Prograis but I just don’t see what everyone else is talking about in him. He’s a great fighter but there’s nothing extraordinary about him and I just think Josh Taylor’s got that you know. So I think I think actually, his [Taylor’s] toughest fight could have been against Baranchyk. And I actually thought that if he was going to lose, it would be against Baranchyk but [Taylor] even put him to the floor and that’s just showing you. I think Taylor hasn’t gotten the exposure outside of the UK as much as Prograis. That’s why everyone’s hyping up Prograis so much but I think Taylor will shock the US

You fought Taylor in the amateurs?

He came up to me afterwards said it was a great fight. And I felt the same so we know each other from them. And when I moved back to London, he needed help for sparring because he was fighting a southpaw so I sparred him then as well. And really that’s when I felt that he really developed… Especially in terms of strength, he’s much stronger now. I am impressed. But with all this being said, I still think that I have a chance of beating all these guys. I still believe I can be a world champion. So, if anything, I think that just shows who’s the best one right now. So if I can beat him, then then it means I’m the best. Everyone can beat anyone. That’s that’s the way I feel right now.

 

Tornado Warning: Josh Taylor Prepares for Regis Prograis

The sun, the sea, the sand, his girlfriend by his side—and the feeling of being IBF super-lightweight champion. Forty-eight hours after defeating Ivan Baranchyk to become Scotland’s fourteenth world champion, Josh Taylor jetted off to the Balearic Islands for some rest and recovery.

A favorable climate, a few drinks, and an inviting swimming pool were just some of the rewards that Taylor lapped up, and then, halfway through his holiday, it hit him . . .

A few days earlier, Taylor, in his fifteenth professional fight, had heard those three magical words: ‘And the new . . . !’ His fans in Glasgow were rapturous, his friends and family were ecstatic, but before he had time to absorb everything, he was thrown into a face-off against—such is the format of the World Boxing Super Series—the WBA champion Regis Prograis. Taylor will face Prograis later this year to determine who will be the winner of the WBSS 140-pound tournament and arguably the best fighter in the division. It was a whirlwind of a night for “The Tartan Tornado,” but he had little time to let the events and the realization of a dream-come-true sink in.

“It was just a feeling of pure ecstasy, relief . . . it’s hard to describe and put into words,” he told Hannibal Boxing.

Back to Ibiza. Taylor had just jumped into the pool, and his partner, Danielle, was sunbathing, when he decided to take a much-needed nap.

“I was lying there for half an hour,” Taylor recalled. “I was half dozing off, and I said to her, ‘Danielle I’m world champion by the way.’ It was just starting to sink in: I’m world champion. It feels weird saying that; I’m the world champ. She says, ‘I know, I’m so proud of you,’ and I was, like, ‘Wow, it’s sunk in. I’ve done it.’”

Taylor–Baranchyk was everything that many thought it would be. It was a mix of boxing ability from the challenger and aggression and resoluteness from the champion; and, at times, both men lowered their heads like a pair of battling rams and wailed away at one another. Taylor dropped Baranchyk twice in the sixth round to seal the victory.

“At times it was really easy for me,” Taylor said. “At times I was making him miss, I was moving my feet, jabbing and moving, but I just felt I wasn’t doing enough. I felt like I could have done that all night and made him miss and outboxed him, but I felt I wasn’t doing enough.

“I felt because he was the champion I had to go out and dominate and take the belt off him. At times when I was outboxing him, the crowd were going silent, and that’s when I was thinking ‘Right, am I doing enough here?’ Even though I was still winning the fight and winning most of the rounds, I just thought I was doing enough, so I then decided to have a bit more of a fight, but I was in control of the whole fight, of what I was doing and what was happening. Never once was I in trouble and I could have made it easier, but I decided not to.”

His schooling in the fourteen fights prior had set him up perfectly for his crowning glory. Time spent in America, a domestic title win in his own city, a grudge match, victory against a wily veteran and getting his feet wet against Viktor Postol laid the foundation for something that felt like a matter of time. Taylor’s belief in his own abilities is what we come to expect from a man with the amateur pedigree he has, but the expectation of delivering placed a weight on his shoulders which he says is now gone thanks to the win last month.

“It’s a weight off my own shoulders. I didn’t feel any pressure from anyone else or anything like that, it was just my own shoulders, my own expectations and it was the moment I’d been visualizing for so many years of becoming world champion. Everywhere I went, seeing it written down ‘Josh Taylor, future world champion.’ Everywhere I went, just drumming it into my own subconscious, to believe in it and the chance was finally there, and there was no way I was letting it slip. Massive relief from my own shoulders.”

With some time spent in Ibiza as well as the Isle of Man to watch the spectacular TT motorbike event, thus allowing him to indulge in his other sporting passion, Taylor has made the most of his break but the gym is calling once again and the ‘Rougarou’—Regis Prograis—is waiting for him.

No announcement has been made yet about where and when the final of the super-lightweight tournament will be held. Each finalist has had consecutive fights in their own country. A third for either would hold a significant advantage, so neutral territory may well be the way to go.

Prograis has, to use a phrase, ‘looked the goods’ so far, with many believing he is number one in the 140-pound division. A theory loosely backed up his number-one seeding in the WBSS tournament. His win against Julius Indongo and the even more impressive dismantling of Kiryl Relikh have fans and media tipping him to go well beyond winning the WBSS and moving up to welterweight, where he is seen as a potential live threat to the likes of Terence Crawford and company.

“He’s hyped up, of course he is,” said Taylor. “He believes his own hype as well. He says he’s got a big following even though there was a thousand people or even a few hundred at his last fight. That doesn’t matter, it’s me and him at the end of the day in a ring and we both have to fight. I just believe I’ve got the beating of him. I think he believes in his own hype a bit too much, but we’ll see.

“I just told him he better be ready,” Taylor said of their in-ring face-off in Glasgow. “He better be in good shape, and he better be ready to have a fight because I’m coming to rip this title off him and beat him up. I told him he’s never fought anybody like me, he’s never boxed anyone, really, in his whole career. He’s 24-0, who has he boxed? He boxed Indongo who is forty-five-years-old [Writers note: Taylor was being sarcastic], and he’s boxed Reilikh who had to lose over forty pounds in nine weeks to get to the weight. So, he was gone at the weight. He’s never really boxed anybody who is going to hit him back, and I don’t think he’s going to be prepared for it.”