Josh Taylor-Jack Catterall Rematch Will Run Under ‘New System’
Taylor controversially won last February.
The Josh Taylor-Jack Catterall rematch could be a stepping stone in revolutionizing the judging scoring system in boxing.
Promoter Ben Shalom said there will be a new system of analyzing the fights.
In February, the Scottish boxer, Taylor, defended his undisputed 140-pound titles against England’s Catterall in a 12-round bout in Taylor’s home turf of Glasgow and won by split decision. But the decision didn’t go well with the boxing fraternity who believed that Catterall was robbed of – what they call — a clear victory that night.
Shalom, the head of Boxxer, is adamant about a better showing in terms of observing the fight and for this, he is working in collaboration with Sky to maintain transparency in this regard.
“I think Taylor-Catterall II will be the first fight where we introduce something,” Shalom told SecondsOut.
“You will see it early next year. And yes, look, we want to see a lot of change in the sport. We’ve seen that with judging, we’ve seen that with regulation, we’ve seen that with doping.”
Shalom hasn’t clearly prescribed what changes his team is after but he did hint at introducing the additional panel of jurists for the Taylor-Catterall rematch.
“I think for the big fights a lot of people want to see a different way of judging the fight, or maybe more judges, or maybe judges in the (television) trucks,” Shalom said.
The overwhelming hue cry even led to the investigation of the judges assigned to score the bout which resulted in downgrading the status of veteran judge Ian John-Lewis, who scored the bout 114-111 for Taylor by the British Boxing Board of Control.
Taylor had initially refused a rematch with Catterall with the Glasgow native striving for a blockbuster fight at 147. But soon, he had a change of mind and decided to run it back with Catterall one more time.
Taylor relinquished three of his 147-pound titles — WBA, WBC and IBF — to ensure that his rematch goes on as planned. The highly anticipated match is expected to go down in late February or early March next year.