JOSH Taylor has grown accustomed to keeping exalted company at McGuigan’s gym in London. Carl Frampton, George Groves and David Haye have all frequented the place from time to time, not to mention a bona fide boxing legend in Barry McGuigan. Not only does the Scot’s trainer Shane McGuigan feel all this has made the 27-year-old from Prestonpans the fighter he is today, by the end of Saturday night he confidently predicts his man will have gained access to another exclusive club. By then, assuming all goes to plan at the SSE Hydro, he will only have US phenomenon Terence Crawford for company in the list of fighters to have got the upper hand over tough Ukrainian opponent Viktor Postol.
“You have got to surround yourself with champions,” says Shane. “You might want to be the king of the gym and be the star but it is never going to be like that, you need to learn how not only to be a champion, but how to hold yourself like a champion and live like a champion.
“When Josh came in, he had Frampton at the start, who was a two-weight world champion, he had Haye, who has been there and done that,” Shane added. “They all prepare differently. Now he has got [George] Groves. So he knows what it takes to be at that level. And now people like Lee [McGregor] are going to be watching Josh and Groves. Then once Lee is at that level … it is going to be a revolving door, a conveyor belt.”
It almost goes without saying that Postol – a former holder of the belt which Taylor craves, who has never been stopped in 29 outings, is a huge threat to Taylor’s dreams of taking on Jose Ramirez for the WBC title. But that danger is only magnified by the fact that, at 34 years of age, it is the Ukrainian’s last throw of the dice. While he has been cool, calm and collected at all his media commitments, make no mistaking what is also on the line for the man from Kyiv.
“It is definitely last chance saloon for him, because if he is beaten by a guy who has only had 12 fights, where does that leave him?” said Shane, who feels that victory could also open doors at the 147kg category, making a mega-fight at welterweight against Crawford or Manny Pacquaio a possibility. “When people look at it from a governing body standpoint, or say at US cable network Showtime, they will say ‘he has been exposed by a relative novice’.”
Ironically, Shane feels McGuigan is already kind of the gym – the best trainer in there and one of the best fighters he has ever worked with. The only piece of the puzzle he is missing is experience, and that is something which only comes with time. So efficiently has he progressed through the early part of his pro career, that he hasn’t had to taste too much in the way of adversity. But Taylor won’t get things all his own way on Saturday, where a technical, cagey start is forecast.
“He is going to have to think his way through it early on,” says Shane. “I don’t think it is going to be all guns blazing, straight off the bat. Josh might get frustrated at times, but the Josh of a year ago would have got a lot more frustrated. Now he is a lot more relaxed and calm when things aren’t going his way. That is what he needs if he wants to win world titles.”
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