JOSH Taylor is one man who won’t be stumping up the £19.95 pay-per-view fee for tonight’s Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor super fight. In fact, the 26-year-old Commonwealth and WBC Silver Super Lightweight champion from Prestonpans plans to switch off his phone and sign off his Twitter, Whatsapp social media accounts all weekend long.

But unlike many boxing aficionados, Taylor’s actions are not based on any lofty disdain for what is about to transpire in Las Vegas this weekend. Instead, the Scot is simply gutted that he won’t be there to watch it in person.

Taylor and his boxing buddies Carl Frampton and Conrad Cummings and their partners had flights and accommodation all booked for Sin City this week, until Taylor’s manager Barry McGuigan decreed that the Scot, an emphatic victor against Ohara Davies at Braehead in July, would be returning to the ring in ten weeks’ time and ordered him back into training camp in London.

“I will not be tuning in because I was meant to be on a plane going out to Vegas for it,” said Taylor. “Instead I am back in training camp preparing for my next fight. So I am absolutely spewing.

I am signing off Twitter, Whatsapp, everything.

“Barry said he wanted me back in camp so I didn’t have any choice really,” he added. “I had it all booked and paid for and everything so I just had to cancel it at the last minute and Barry said he would refund me the money. I couldn’t really get out of it, if you know what I mean. I never had a ticket to go to the fight, I was just going to Vegas for the carry on and the banter. If I hear Mayweather hasn’t knocked him out, I probably won’t even watch it at all.”

It isn’t that Taylor doesn’t appreciate UFC as a sport in its own right. Brought up watching the likes of Chuck Liddell, Taylor rhymes off the names of fighters he admires and would love McGregor to make good on his boasts by becoming the first man in two decades of trying to put a blemish on Mayweather’s unbeaten record.

The problem is that he just can’t see it happening. Taylor feels there is enough room for both sports to happily co-exist. He feels it will reflect poorly on boxing if the five division world champion, even at the age of 40, cannot stop a man who has never boxed a single competitive round as an amateur or professional.

“I am interested in the event, I think it is a great event, but it is a big exhibition really –that is all it is,” said Taylor.

“You couldn’t even call it a fight, in the competitive sense, really. It is an exhibition, a money-making exhibition. A big event for entertainment value, I think the more exciting fights are on the undercard really.

“As far as the main event goes, it is a bit of a joke. People are buying into the McGregor hype and saying ‘oh if he lands with that left hand’, because you can see what he does in the UFC. But he does that in the UFC against people who have little or no experience of boxing at all, that is why he ends up catching them.

“Mayweather is the best in the business. Although he has been retired and has been for two years he is still the best in the business and knows how to box. He has had every style come at him already. So anybody who thinks that McGregor is going to win, it is a joke really.

“Listen, there would be nothing better than to see McGregor go and knock him out. I think that would be brilliant.

But I also think it would be terrible for the sport of boxing. Never mind that, even if Mayweather doesn’t knock McGregor out, it looks bad.

“Even if the fight goes the distance, it looks terrible for the sport of boxing – because then you would get all the UFC fighters starting to think they can come into boxing, and start taking over. Thankfully I don’t think there is any chance of that happening.

“It is the same old Mayweather, he is boring, he says the same thing all the time now. But McGregor is funny, he always comes up with something different. I would hate to be coming up against him in press conferences, because he would rip me to shreds.

“But you have got to admire what McGregor has done. He has been the best fighter in the business for 20 years and this fight is just an exhibition really. There was too much money involved for it not to happen.

“I love watching UFC, I think it is a very highly skilled sport. A lot of people think it is just brutal, but it is a highly skilled sport, with a lot of different techniques. Technique on the ground. People think they are just lying on the ground but there is a lot of skill that comes into it and I can appreciate that skill as well.

“They are two different sports completely, if this Mayweather-McGregor fight was in a cage under UFC rules it wouldn’t last a minute, McGregor would take him down, put him in a choke hold, an arm lock or something and do real damage to him.

“It wouldn’t last longer than a minute. So that is why I think you have to keep the two sports separate. There definitely is a market for both sports, I don’t think they have to compete.”