Josh Taylor

Taylor became the first lightweight Scottish boxer to qualify for the Olympics since Dick McTaggart, who won a gold medal in Melbourne in 1956 and a bronze in Rome at the following games.

Josh Taylor (born 2 January 1991) is a Scottish professional boxer.

As an amateur, he won a lightweight silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games and light-welterweight gold at the 2014 edition.

From May 2021 to May 2022, Taylor reigned as the undisputed light-welterweight champion, unifying all four major titles in the division and being only the sixth male boxer to do so.

With his win over José Ramírez in 2021, Taylor became the second Scotsman to be an undisputed champion and the first Briton to do so in the four-belt era.

Nicknamed "The Tartan Tornado" for his aggressive boxing style, Taylor's knockout-to-win percentage stands at 68%.

As of May 2022, he is ranked as the world's best active light-welterweight by BoxRec and the Transnational Boxing Rankings Board (TBRB), as well as the seventh-best active boxer, pound-for-pound, by the Boxing Writers Association of America, and ninth by the Ring magazine.

Born in Prestonpans, Scotland, Taylor has a sister, Finch.

As a child, he was passionate about motorcycle racing, and "dreamed about being a world champion superbike racer or a world champion MotoGP racer"; he named motorcycle racers Valentino Rossi and Steve Hislop as his childhood heroes.

Taylor was a junior taekwondo champion, and turned to boxing at 15.

He spent a short time at Meadowbank ABC and then moved onto Lochend ABC under coach Terry McCormack of Edinburgh.

Taylor won a silver medal in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, where he was beaten by Thomas Stalker in the lightweight final by 11–3.

Following the European Qualifying Event in Trabzon, Turkey, the ACB Lochend boxer qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, losing to number two seed Domenico Valentino in the round of 16.

He reached a Commonwealth Games final again in 2014, this time at light-welterweight.

Taylor won the gold medal, defeating Junias Jonas of Namibia in the final.

Taylor also represented the British Lionhearts at the World Series of Boxing.

Ryan had previously held the title between 2014 and 2015.

Taylor won his first seven fights by knockout (KO).

Taylor started his professional career in June 2015, signing with Barry McGuigan's Cyclone Promotions, and was trained by Shane McGuigan.

Taylor made his debut in July 2015, defeating Archie Weah with a second round technical knockout (TKO).

In his seventh fight, Taylor picked up the Commonwealth light-welterweight title by beating Dave Ryan with a fifth-round stoppage.

Ryan went down twice over the course of the bout.

At regional level, he held the Commonwealth light-welterweight title from 2016 to 2017.

His KO streak came to an end against Alfonso Olvera, who went eight rounds with Taylor at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on 28 January 2017.

Taylor won the fight by unanimous decision (UD) with scores of 79–72, and 78-73 twice.

On 24 March Taylor defended his Commonwealth title for the first time, beating Warren Joubert with a sixth-round TKO, after hurting him several times with left hooks.

Joubert went down in round six and his corner threw in the towel.

On 8 July Taylor faced WBC Silver champion and fellow unbeaten prospect Ohara Davies.

The two had previously taunted each other on Twitter.

Taylor would also be defending the Commonwealth title.

Taylor dominated the fight and stopped Davies, dropping him once in round three and twice in round seven before the referee halted the contest.

Taylor defended his WBC Silver title against former lightweight world champion Miguel Vázquez on 11 November at the Royal Highland Centre.

Although Vázquez' style seemed to pose problems for Taylor in the early rounds, Taylor wore him down as the fight went on.

Vázquez went down in round nine from body shots, and he failed to beat the count.

This was Vázquez' first stoppage loss.

On 18 January 2018 it was confirmed that Taylor would defend his WBC Silver light-welterweight title against veteran Humberto Soto on 3 March 2018, at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow.

On 24 February 2018 it was revealed that Soto had sustained an injury whilst training meaning he had to pull out the fight.

On the same day, Winston Campos was announced as his replacement.

In June 2018, Taylor fought former WBC light-welterweight champion, Viktor Postol, gaining a UD win in a twelve-round fight, meaning that he was placed in the mandatory position to fight WBC light-welterweight champion, José Ramírez.

He is a former undisputed super lightweight champion, having held the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Association (WBA) (Super version) titles between 2019 and 2022, the World Boxing Council (WBC) title between 2021 and 2022, the World Boxing Organisation (WBO) title between 2021 and 2023 and the Ring magazine title between 2019 and 2023.