Josh Taylor punches his way to split-points decision victory over Jack Catterall to remain unbeaten

Josh Taylor escaped defeat and kept hold of his four world super lightweight titles thanks to a controversial split points decision victory over Jack Catterall Saturday.

The unheralded Catterall floored Taylor and outboxed him for most of the fight, yet two of the three judges scored the fight for WBC, IBF, WBA and WBO champion Taylor in front of his home fans at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland.

Taylor, who took a count in the eighth round, rallied in the later rounds and was awarded scores of 114-111 and 113-112, with 113-112 to Catterall.

It was Taylor's third world title defense and his first on home soil since he was crowned world champion at the same venue in May, 2019 — but this will be remembered for the judges' baffling verdict.

Not many will have been known about Catterall internationally before the biggest fight of his career, but he produced a technically smart performance worthy of the top level in front of a sell-out crowd of 12,101. Catterall's fluent boxing made him look like the undisputed champion, rather than Taylor, who was caught too easy and found landing clean shots too hard.

But Taylor, who has talked about stepping up a weight division for bigger fights against the likes of Terence Crawford and Errol Spence, insisted he did enough to win the fight in the later rounds.

«100 percent, I thought I won the fight, I started a little slow but once I got into my rhythm and started catching him with my shots,» Taylor said.

«It wasn't my best performance and I've put a lot of pressure on my self being heavy favorite and boxing back at home fight but once I started catching him, I believe I got the win 100%. I know I won the fight, overall I scored the bigger shots and the more meaningful shots. He put up