That’s all for tonight. Thanks as always for following along with us and be sure to check out the report off tonight’s fight here.
“It’s been a long time coming,” López says. “We just beat the No 1 guy, the lineal world champion, the former undisputed world champion.”
López, who made the wrong kind of headlines during the run-up by stating that he aspired to take Taylor’s life in the ring, embraces his foe and apologizes.
“I think let my emotions get the best of me,” he says. “I do not want to take your life. I want to you to go back to your family. I apologize as a man.”
López continues: “Josh Taylor is a tough dude. I can see why he beat so many fighters. But you’ve got to counter the counterpuncher. You’ve got to outsmart the man and get in there. And I did that. I think I did enough. This is what it is all about. I questioned myself for a good reason. You guys don’t understand. I’ve always been my worst critic. And you guys got a little glimpse of it. But I’ve just got to ask you one thing, and one thing only. Do I still got it?”
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Josh Taylor: 'The better man won tonight'
“No excuses,” Taylor says. “It wasn’t my best. The better man won tonight. I’ve got no excuses. I fought to the best of my ability. He was better than me tonight. It is what it is. Congratulations to Teófimo.”
He continued: “I thought it was a close fight. I’d love to do it again. I definitely know I’m better than that, and I know I can beat him still. I’d love to do it again. But he’s the champ, so the ball is in his court.”
Taylor disputed the notion that his 15 months of inactivity before tonight’s fight worked against him.
“The layoff had nothing to do with it,” he says. “I’ve got no excuses. He was the better man tonight. I think probably will be moving up to welterweight now. But, no excuses. He was the better man tonight.”
Teófimo López beats Josh Taylor by unanimous decision!
Teófimo López is a two-division world champion after handing Josh Taylor the first defeat of his professional career and taking the WBO junior welterweight title he’d held since 2021.
The three judges at ringside handed down scores of 115-113 (what?), 115-113 (what?!) and 117-111 (that’s more like it). The Guardian had it 116-112, which doesn’t quite reflect the extent of López’s domination: two of the rounds scored to Taylor could have easily gone López’s way.
Round 12
López rocks Taylor backward with a punch early in the round that suggests a stoppage is near ... and he’ll have two-and-a-half minutes to close. Taylor’s legs are gone as he pinballs around in full retreat as López moves in. The crowd is on its feet. Taylor is going to make it to the bell, but there’s no doubt about this outcome. It will be the first official defeat of Josh Taylor’s professional career owing to an absolute beatdown by López in a fight that very few people thought he would win.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 112-116 López)
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Round 11
More punishment meted out by López with little response from Taylor. López connects with an uppercut that probably would have dropped any lightweight in the world. Another uppercut by López. It’s a testament to Taylor that he’s still upright after all of this.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 103-106 López)
Round 10
Taylor does enough to shade the 10th but only because López appeared to take it easy after running in the red for the past four sessions.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 10-9 López (Taylor 94-96 López)
Round 9
López is just plain beating up the bigger man before him. He’s in total control and Taylor looks ready to go. López puts on a show in the final minute, snapping Taylor’s head back at will as a fatigued Taylor misses wildly with looping shots from along the ropes. A brilliant performance.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 84-87 López)
Round 8
Nothing is working for Taylor, who is being countered to death by López when not just plain being beaten to the punch. Honestly, this one looks like a done deal. López rocks the champion badly in the closing seconds. Another easy one for López.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 75-77 López)
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Round 7
Taylor needs to figure things out before this one gets out of hand. López is beating him to the punch in nearly every exchange and it’s resulting in long stretches of inactivity. He’s being battered by a bigger puncher and having trouble returning fire effectively. Somehow, López has a cut over his right eye. But this one is all López and Taylor is flirting with serious trouble.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 66-67 López)
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Round 6
Taylor comes out more assertive to start the sixth, getting off first with the intent on reversing the pattern of the past couple of rounds. He’s all but abandoned the jab. López continues to outthrow, outland and generally outtough the Scot. And to put a cherry on top, López catches Taylor coming in again in the final seconds and Taylor holds on until the final bell. Easy round for López.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 57-57 López)
Round 5
Another good round by López, who is dialled-in and having his best moments of the night. He’s the busier fighter and landing the cleaner shots while making himself more a elusive target for the body work that Taylor was depending on early.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 48-47 López)
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Round 4
Taylor goes down in a heap but the referee correctly rules it a slip. López is outthrowing and outlanding Taylor and gaining in confidence. Chants of “Fuck you, Tay-lor!” resound from a wide swath of López supporters on the south end of the room. Then near the end of the frame, López rocks Taylor back into the ropes with a concussive right hand. And Taylor looks hurt! Taylor may be hurt! He’s on his feet and lucky the bell is close! End of the round a massive statement by López, who has the whole theater behind him.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 9-10 López (Taylor 39-37 López)
Round 3
Taylor is warned for hitting López after he’d pushed him halfway through the ropes. When López looks to touch gloves, Taylor immediately stamps him with a jab. López is landing the heavier shots at the moment but Taylor is doing better work in combination. This is already a very entertaining fight contested at a high pace that belies the one-sided scorecard that we have so far as López easily could have shaded rounds two or three.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 10-9 López (Taylor 30-27 López)
Round 2
López is fighting out of an orthodox stance. He’s lands a crunching left hook upstairs on Taylor, his best punch of the fight. A firefight breaks out in a neutral corner with about a minute to go in the round with both fighters trading head shots. Taylor diligently continues his work to the body catches López coming in with a right hand in the closing seconds. A very close round that could go either way, but Taylor has done just enough to nick it.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 10-9 López (Taylor 20-18 López)
Round 1
There’s the bell. Taylor’s size advantages looks even more glaring under the lights than on paper. Chants of “Te-o! Te-o!” ring through the crowd. Taylor pushes López against the ropes and opens fire with combinations, landing a couple to his opponent’s ribs. López’s hand speed looks formidable but Taylor has landed the better shots, making it a point to target the body. A small cut on the bridge of López’s nose is visible as he walks back to his corner after the bell.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Taylor 10-9 López (Taylor 10-9 López)
The fighters are making their entrances. First it’s Teófimo López, who emerges from the back of the theater in an aqua and gold robe with gold trim and makes the long walk down the aisle as Juicy by the Notorious BIG plays at the ear-splitting volumes. That robe, upon closer inspection, is dotted with Bud Light patches and has a large Walt Disney logo on the back, an unmistakable political statement (or troll job).
Now it’s Taylor’s turn, who makes his entrance to Ram Jam’s Black Betty in a tartan robe. Good stuff all around. The teeming crowd, which Top Rank says is a sellout and gate record for the theater, is popping from back to front.
Tale of the tape
Here’s a look at how Taylor and López measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Taylor will enjoy advantages of two inches in height and one inch in reach.
Xander Zayas has won an eight-round unanimous decision over the durable Ronald Cruz. All three ringside judges scored it an 80-71 shutout. The rising star of the junior middleweight division improves to 16 wins in 16 pro outings, continues to chart improvement with each successive fight and looks remarkably polished for 20 years old. Big things await.
Next up: Josh Taylor v Teófimo López for Taylor’s WBO junior welterweight title.
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Xander Zayas is off to a good start in the co-feature bout. The blue-chip junior middleweight prospect from San Juan dropped Ronald Cruz with an exquisite counter right in the first 30 seconds of the opening round, bringing the Puerto Rico Day weekend crowd to its feet. Cruz has steadied himself since, but Zayas has continued to bank rounds working behind the jab and appears in complete control through six frames of their scheduled eight-rounder.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to New York for tonight’s junior welterweight title fight between Josh Taylor and Teófimo López. We’re ringside at the Theater at Madison Square Garden for an eagerly awaited clash featuring a pair of former unified champions from different weight classes once bound for stardom but whose stars have dimmed over the past two years for various reasons. A quick refresher from today’s fight preview:
Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs), a stylish, aggressive southpaw who first shot to fame with a series of wins over current or former world champions Regis Prograis, Ivan Baranchyk and Viktor Postol, earned the biggest win of his career when he outpointed José Ramírez in a May 2021 unification bout, scoring a pair of knockdowns along the way. That made him the first British fighter, and only the fifth man in boxing’s four-belt era, to become an undisputed champion at any weight.
But the Tartan Tornado was fortunate to escape with a split-decision win in a mandatory defense against the unheralded Jack Catterall eight months later. He’s since vacated three of his four title belts in pursuit of a rematch that failed to materialize after Taylor tore his plantar fascia in March. While the Scot remains the alpha dog of boxing’s refractured junior welterweight division, it’s been more than 15 months since he’s made to show it inside the ropes.
López (18-1, 13 KOs), the heavy-handed 25-year-old nicknamed the Takeover, a nod to his disruptive career ambitions, has weathered even more dramatic swings of fortune. Having captured the IBF lightweight title in only his 15th paying fight by knocking out the durable Richard Commey, the cocksure left-hander from the Brooklyn neighborhood of Sunset Park delivered on his enormous promise in October 2020 with a unanimous-decision win over Vasiliy Lomachenko, the three-weight champion from Ukraine who for years had been considered the sport’s best fighter regardless of weight.
But after more than 13 months passed before López made his first defense, a thrice-postponed date with mandatory challenger George Kambosos, the American suffered a shock defeat by split decision that cost him the IBF, WBA and WBO belts. Already straining to make 135lbs, López made the climb to junior welterweight, where he’s since acclimated with a pair of unspectacular wins over fringe contenders.
The co-main event between Xander Zayas and Ronald Cruz has just started, so the main event go off before the top of the hour.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s his lookahead to tonight’s main event featuring two former unified champions whose careers are in need of a statement win.
