I sat, clenching my fists with knuckles chalk white as I gripped the harsh, plastic base of my seat. I was watching a documentary about Sydney-based photographer, Nick Moir, dubbed the ‘storm chaser’. Travelling all over the world in search of the wildest tornados, he faced fear head on, screaming with delight and straining his jaw as he hurtled towards impending danger.
It reminded me of two things; firstly, tornados and the moniker which accompanies Prestonpans’ Josh Taylor (14-0, 12KOs) as he strides into battle but more pressingly, the seemingly jubilant grin that is painted across his face before, during and in the heat of every battle. A fearless approach to combat was necessary, yet not always embraced with open arms. As Taylor faces the most destructive of storms yet to grace a young career, he appears calm and prepared to challenge the elements.
In Ivan Baranchyk, from Belarus, he will meet a stalky, smiling champion of the world. His previous contest ended with a gruesome haematoma occupying the eye of his opponent, an almost barbaric ‘job well done’. The IBF super-lightweight champion is relentless, attacking in waves and forcing opponents to wilt under suffocating pressure. The fact that he was a 4/1 underdog made a mockery of the oddsmakers, paid to assess risk and reward from the safety of their offices or homes. For ‘The Beast’, such protection wasn’t possible.
Scotland’s Taylor will weather the storm of Baranchyk if he is to realise the destiny he has been scrawling on every napkin and old receipt within touching distance. Practising his signature and constantly reminding us of his job title underneath – Josh Taylor, World Champion – yet actions do infact speak far louder than words littered on the scraps of paper he’d long since discarded. In facing the visiting champion, he will summon the natural ability that has garnered an enormous fan base in the United Kingdom, not just in his native Edinburgh.
One of the finest fighters to emerge in recent years, he’d pipped Anthony Joshua and George Groves to the Boxing Writers’ Fighter of the Year Award only last year. In brutally stopping his vocal rival Ohara Davies, then comfortably beating former world champion, Miguel Vazquez, it was his outing against former champion, Viktor Postol that had put the wider boxing public on notice. Now, despite keeping the WBC Silver title warm for almost two years, he will attempt to wrestle world honours from the Freddie Roach-trained wrecking ball, under Glasgow’s shining lights.
From spending time with the ‘Tartan Tornado’, whether watching him in the gym or enjoying victories with his parents and his partner, Danielle, it was evident that the bravado that accompanies some of the sport’s highest paid fighters was reported missing. In the McGuigan Gym in Wandsworth, where he is trained by Shane McGuigan, Taylor is the class clown. He’s interrupting interviews with one-liners or working on improving a potential career amongst the BDC’s elite, launching darts as though they were javelin.
He’d never really changed, Prestonpans’ favourite son. Though, watching him during fight week, pacing the stage at the weigh-in, biting down and straining his jaw with beady eyes staring into the soul of whoever dares think they can topple him – he becomes a different animal. Aged twenty-eight and preparing an assault on the rest of the division, he was primed to take advantage of a scattered, post-Terence Crawford landscape, with the IBF just the beginning of a vicious treasure hunt.
Before Josh Taylor, there have been Messrs Buchanan, Watt, Clinton, Arthur, Harrison and Burns, uniting a nation that often revels in the disappointment of our other sporting ventures. However in fighting for the IBF title this evening, he attempts to become only the second man to capture the coveted red and gold. Murray Sutherland was the inaugural super-middleweight champion when the governing body launched, a young man from Edinburgh, of all places. Sutherland etched his name in boxing history thirty-five years ago, paving the way for Taylor’s potential success. History has a way of repeating itself in boxing, for better or for worse.
Just as Nick Moir scrambles out of his car, racing towards the scene of destruction, Josh Taylor will tackle that same carnage without fear. Whether Moir was successful in capturing the correct images or the beauty of nature’s misadventures was dependent on conditions pure-determined. Taylor never had to worry about that. He never concerned himself with judges, venues, corruption or misfortune. He just wanted to fight. The only difference, figuratively, between Moir and Taylor was that Moir would chase the storm – Josh Taylor is the storm and, this evening, we’re all caught up in the eye of it.
Article written by: Craig Scott
Follow Craig on Twitter at: @craigscott209