LAS VEGAS – Josh Taylor realizes the type of difficult fight that awaits him Saturday night.
The Scottish southpaw still can’t help but think at times about the opportunities beating Jose Ramirez would create for him later this year. First and foremost, the 30-year-old Taylor would become a potential opponent for Terence Crawford.
Bob Arum, whose company promotes Crawford and Ramirez, informed BoxingScene.com that he would like to match the Taylor-Ramirez winner against Crawford sometime in the fall. Now that the two opponents Crawford wants most, Manny Pacquiao and Errol Spence Jr., have agreed to fight each other August 21, boxing Taylor or Ramirez might make even more sense for the unbeaten WBO welterweight champion.
A bout between Crawford and the Taylor-Ramirez winner would match the two undisputed 140-pound champions of boxing’s four-belt era.
“I would love that fight,” Taylor told BoxingScene.com. “I believe Terence Crawford, outside of Canelo, is one of the pound-for-pound best. So, I would love nothing more than to fight, you know, Crawford. It’s a massive fight. Who wouldn’t, you know? That’s another sexy fight, that one. So, yeah, it’s a massive fight and, yeah, the prospect of fighting Crawford down the line is unbelievable. It speaks for itself. It’d be a huge, huge fight. So, yeah, it’s exciting. It’s exciting times for sure.”
Taylor (17-0, 13 KOs) isn’t certain, though, that he’ll move up to the welterweight limit of 147 pounds for his next fight if he defeats Ramirez (26-0, 17 KOs) in a 12-round main event ESPN will televise from The Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas (8 p.m. EDT; 5 p.m. PDT). The undefeated IBF/WBA 140-pound champion still makes the junior welterweight limit “quite comfortably,” yet there isn’t a fight with opponents currently available at that weight that would be bigger than moving up seven pounds to challenge Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs).
Teofimo Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) also would be a possible opponent for the Taylor-Ramirez winner if the unified lightweight champion beats Australia’s George Kambosos Jr. (19-0, 10 KOs) in their IBF-mandated match June 19 at loanDepot Park in Miami. That would require Lopez to move up from the 135-pound division to 140, a possibility Brooklyn’s Lopez repeatedly has discussed.
“It’s hard not to get excited about the prospects of what’s after this fight, you know, because the winner of this fight is going on to some big things,” Taylor said. “You know, some opportunities after this fight is just gonna be unbelievable. So, yeah, it’s hard not to get excited. But you’ve gotta get excited, then you put it to the back of your mind. There’s a massive, massive job ahead of me on Saturday, which is to topple Ramirez, and I believe I’m gonna do it.”
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
