Former undisputed junior welterweight champion Josh Taylor is mulling the next move for his career after suffering his first defeat as a pro.
Last month, Taylor returned to the ring for the first time since February of 2022 – and he was outboxed over twelve rounds by Teofimo Lopez, who walked away with the WBO world title.
During his long layoff, Taylor vacated three of his world titles to move forward with a rematch against Jack Catterall.
Taylor won a controversial decision over Catterall last year.
After several delays, the rematch never came together – and then Taylor was ordered by the WBO to make a mandatory defense against Lopez.
Taylor believes that he came back too soon against Lopez – due to a foot injury – but at that point he was already inactive for far too long.
“I’ll be out before the end of the year again, hopefully October or November time. I’ll do what’s best for me. In the last two years after the Jose Ramirez fight I’ve made deals to please other people. So, it’s time to get back to being selfish again and doing what’s best for me,” Taylor explained to The Daily Record.
“I’ll go down this week to Liverpool, get all my tests done, and go over what went well and what went wrong in the Lopez fight. There were a lot of factors in that camp, things that didn’t go my way. I went into the fight when I maybe shouldn’t have. I should have delayed it four or five weeks.”
Taylor is unsure of his next weight – junior welterweight or welterweight – but he wants to scratch that itch by facing Catterall in a rematch.
“We’ll see what options are there and what fights I get offered whether at 140 or 147,” Taylor said.
“The Catterall fight will be getting revisited again hopefully sooner rather than later. I want it again, just to shut most people up. That will definitely happen again before I retire, that’s for sure. If I stay at 140 then my next fight isn’t going to be a championship fight so it won’t be championship weight anyway.
“That will work in my favor. But I can still make the weight. I made the weight in New York perfectly, better than at any time in the last few years. So the weight wasn’t an excuse. We’ll see what happens going forward whether it’s at 140 or 147 or switching between the two.
“Unless I get someone like Regis Prograis who still wants his rematch as well. That could be another title fight at 140. I need to speak to promoters to see what fights are out there and what’s going to be offered to me. I’ve already had half a path carved out for the route we’re going to take when I move up to 147. So we’ll speak to the lads and the promoters and see what’s happening.”