Josh Taylor is going to get the rematch he has demanded with Jack Catterall.
The Scottish southpaw won a debatable split decision against England’s Catterall and retained his four 140-pound championships February 26 at OVO Hydro in Glasgow. Taylor was dissatisfied with the nature of that 12-round victory and the accompanying criticism, though, and thus pushed to face Catterall again in his next fight.
BoxingScene.com has learned that Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc., Taylor’s promoter, is planning to stage a Taylor-Catterall rematch November 26 at OVO Hydro.
The Taylor-Catterall rematch is expected to be streamed by ESPN+ in the United States. Sky Sports televised the first Taylor-Catterall clash in the United Kingdom and Ireland, but it wasn’t clear as of Monday if their 12-round rematch will air live on Sky Sports or headline a Sky Sports Box Office pay-per-view event.
Either way, Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs) will get the opportunity in four months to atone for his subpar performance against Catterall (26-1, 13 KOs), a fellow southpaw who feels he did more than enough to take Taylor’s titles almost five months ago. Taylor contemplated moving up to the welterweight limit of 147 pounds for his next bout, but the former fully unified 140-pound champion wants the chance to prove his superiority over Catterall before he jumps up seven pounds.
Taylor, 31, and Catterall, 29, might fight for only one title, as opposed to four, when they square off again.
Prestonpans’ Taylor has already relinquished the WBA and WBC super lightweight titles because he wasn’t interested in making mandatory defenses of those crowns. Taylor could give up his IBF championship for the same reason, which would leave him with the WBO belt for which Catterall was the mandatory challenger when they fought February 26.
Catterall dropped Taylor in the eighth round, but Taylor got up from that knockdown and overcame a point deduction for hitting Catterall after the bell sounded to end the 11th round to win on two scorecards.
Judges Ian-John Lewis (114-111) and Victor Loughlin (113-112) scored their fight for Taylor. Judge Howard Foster scored it 113-112 for Catterall, who also had a point deducted by referee Marcus McDonnell for holding during the 10th round.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.