Belt initiative: rare talent Taylor created fight history

It is not going to be easy for Josh Taylor to walk off into the boxing sunset after a remarkable career inside the ropes.

- STEVE BUNCE

It was also a brutally short career, a rare career in British boxing; it was unusual because of the speed, the relentless hard matchmaking and the success.

Taylor, who is now 34, is the only British boxer to have held all four of the accepted and respected belts in the modern era of a sport packed with division and false claims. In a business where men - it is different for the women - often have 20 or more fights before finally getting a chance at a world title, Taylor held a version of the world title after just 15 fights. He had been a professional for less than four years at that time.

In British boxing history, the world champions have been seasoned by years of learning their trade and being used as part of a bargaining system by promoters and managers. Taylor broke with tradition, altered the expected path of boxers and in just his 18th fight, he held all four of the belts. He was Josh Taylor, undisputed champion.

World champions like John Conteh in the Seventies, Alan Minter in the Eighties, and Lennox Lewis in the Nineties served typically extended apprenticeships, featuring for long spells on undercards and waiting for an opening, waiting for a chance.

Conteh won his world title in his 27th fight, Minter his 43rd fight, and Lewis in his 23rd. Lewis had the benefit of two Olympics as experience, including the gold in Seoul, but still danced slowly down the well-trodden and careful path. It was a path that Taylor seemed to reject; he was ready to be fast-tracked by the time he became a professional boxer.