140 pound contender Jack Catterall must be the most frustrated, angry fighter out there today. How long has the southpaw been waiting for his thoroughly deserved return fight with Josh Taylor? How many times has the rematch fallen apart?
Now, a year on from that night in Glasgow when almost everyone felt Catterall had beaten Taylor, who was then the unified four-belt defending champion at light-welterweight, Catterall has had enough and he is moving on. He has no choice.
With talk of Taylor moving on himself, into a fight with former lightweight champ Teofimo Lopez, 29 year old Catterall says he doesn’t believe he will ever get his return go at Taylor. Speaking with iD Boxing, Catterall said he is now looking to land a fight with Regis Prograis; Prograis being the current WBC champ at 140, having lost a close decision to Taylor in an earlier title fight.
Catterall, 26-1(13) says he thinks both he and Prograis beat Taylor, and that a fight between them both is “an easy fight to make.” Before that, Catterall will return to action against TBA on March 25th.
“You know what it is, we was obviously meant to fight Josh, November, December, February, March, and I’m done waiting for it now,” Catterall said. “You have seen this morning the reports of Taylor-Teofimo, they’re talking about fighting. So we kind of got the March 25th date as a keep-busy, active date. I’m not convinced the Josh fight is going to happen now. He’s pulled out more than once. I wanted the Josh fight. I believe I beat Josh and it would have been nice to put that to bed. That’s out of the question now. I want the biggest fights possible. I want the Regis Prograis fight. In my opinion, we both beat Josh, so we have that in common. And it’s an easy fight to make. Regis is up for the fight and it’s a great fight.”
Catterall, who has basically been forced to waste a full year of his precious prime years (years that do not come back), said he will now wait and see how developments unfold regarding a possible fight with the 28-1(24) Prograis. And Catterall is right when he says it’s a great fight.
34 year old Prograis, another southpaw like Catterall and Taylor, is arguably one of the most underrated fighters/champions on the scene today. While Catterall showed in the Taylor fight how good he is. Maybe Prograis, who travelled to London for the Taylor fight back in October of 2019, will be willing to come back to the UK to fight Catterall? We UK fans sure would love that.
Catterall deserves another big fight opportunity, but it is a shame we will likely never get to see that rematch with Taylor. If this does prove to be the case, which fighter’s rep will suffer the most?; Calls Out Prograis
