Josh Taylor (19-3, 13 KOs) lost his third straight fight on Saturday night, losing to Ekow Essuman (22-1, 8 KOs) by a 12-round unanimous decision at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland. The win for Essuman was an upset.
The former undisputed light welterweight champion, Taylor, appeared surprised and disappointed when the scores were announced. This was surprising because his corner should have told him how dire his situation was in the last quarter of the fight.
Taylor’s Exhaustion
They should have been telling Taylor to go for a knockout because he was getting outworked by the heavy-handed Essuman. The scores were 116-112, 116-113, and 115-113. As exhausted as Josh was, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if his training team did try to light a fire under him to fight harder in rounds 8 through 12. He didn’t have the energy.
The combination of inactivity, age, and moving up in weight to 147 proved too much for Taylor. Being inactive and an older fighter is hard enough, but going up seven pounds to fight a natural welterweight, Essuman, was a nightmare for Taylor.
Taylor, 34, fought like he emptied his gas tank after 4 rounds, and all he could do from 5 through 12 was fight in spurts. He did a lot of holding, which was his only way of slowing down the pressure that Essuman was applying.
After the scores were announced, a glum-looking Taylor took off like a rocket, seemingly not wanting to stick around and answer questions about what had gone wrong for him during the fight. It was obvious. He didn’t have the energy, pop in his punches, or the game plan to defeat Essuman.
Return to 140?
After this defeat, there are questions about Taylor’s viability at welterweight. Essuman isn’t one of the better contenders in the division. The way Taylor fought tonight, he’d stand no chance against welterweights like Shakhram Giyasov, Conor Benn, Devin Haney, and Ryan Garcia. I’m sure he’d like to fight some of those guys for the payday, but that’s not happening now after losing his third consecutive fight.
Taylor can always return to the light welterweight division, but he’d already lost his previous two fights in that weight class. Going back down won’t be easy. Even if he does, who is Taylor capable of beating? I don’t see any of the top fighters that he could beat.
