josh taylor

World champion and Commonwealth medal-winning boxer, Tartan Tornado Josh Taylor is currently ranked as one of the best active boxers in the world. By autumn 2021, he had won five titles in the light-welterweight category — the WBA (Super), the IBF, WBC, WBO, and Ring — making him the undisputed world champion in his weight class. He is only the second Scotsman to ever have achieved such a feat. Prior to this, he won light-welterweight gold at the2014 Commonwealth Games.

Taylor hails from the small fishing town of Prestonpans, just outside of Edinburgh. As a teenager, he was initially a Tae Kwon Do champion but became a boxer aged 15. When he was 17, he won his first major medal, taking silver in the lightweight class at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games. Two years later, he won lightweight silver at the senior Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. In 2012, he became the first Scottish boxer to qualify for the Olympics since the 1950s. He made it to the final 16 before bowing out to the then-world number-two, Domenico Valentino. In 2014, he qualified for the Commonwealth Games, held that year in his home country, and celebrated by winning his first gold.

Taylor made his pro boxing debut in America in 2015, beating opponent Archie Weah by TKO. The following year, he won his first light-welterweight title and has since won and retained many more, building a hugely impressive 18-0 win record. He shows no time of losing any matches or titles any time soon, either.