Today marks the controversial anniversary of the first fight between Scotsman, Josh Taylor and England’s, Jack Catterall. The fight is one of the most controversial in recent history, especially in the UK with Taylor walking away with the win, despite being seemingly dominated throughout the majority of the fight. The fight went down in Taylor’s territory, the Glasgow OVO Hydro Arena. Taylor won the fight with scores of 114-111 and 113-112 in his favour with a singular card of 113-112 going to Catterall. El Gato knocked down The Tartan Tornado in the eighth round and landed more punches in 11 of the 12 rounds, however, still came away with a loss.
Following the fight, there were discussions of corruption, cheating, paying off judges and the ‘ugly’ side of boxing came to light. There was a belief that suspected crime boss and former head of MTK Global, Daniel Kinahan had a huge part to play in the result of the fight, however, nothing has been confirmed and will likely never be discussed in the mainstream.
We discussed the fight in great detail on the MMASucka podcast, which can be found here:
The decision was so controversial that Irish bookmaker, Paddy Power decided to refund all stakes placed on Catterall to win the bout and described the decision as “an absolute robbery”.
🗓 ON THIS DAY in 2022…
Josh Taylor secured a split-decision points win over Jack Catterall in one of the most controversial fights in recent years.
Who do you believe won the fight? 🤔
🎬 @SkySportsBoxing #TaylorCatterall | #TaylorCatterall2 pic.twitter.com/hO4VJVV9mN
— IFL TV (@IFLTV) February 26, 2024
Rematch
The two men will finally rematch, however, this time it won’t be in Taylor’s backyard. The fight will go down from a neutral location, in Leeds on April 27th. Unfortunately, the fight should have happened immediately, rather than two years later. Since their first bout, Catterall has put in two lacklustre performances against Darragh Foley and an ageing Jorge Linares. Taylor went on to face Teofimo Lopez, however, suffered his first career defeat. Across 12 rounds, Lopez out-boxed Taylor, taking his WBO and The Ring light-welterweight belts.
Finally, we’ll get the rematch of one of the most controversial decisions in boxing history and we can hope that the victor is conclusive in this one.
April 27th. GAME ON. It’s been a long time coming & I Can’t wait for this one 👊🏼👊🏼🥊 pic.twitter.com/o9wSEags1Z
— Josh Taylor (@JoshTaylorBoxer) February 15, 2024
