Josh Taylor delivered an awe-inspiring performance fit for a king — the new undisputed junior welterweight king of the world.
Taylor dropped Jose Ramirez twice en route to producing a unanimous decision victory at The Theater at Virgin Hotels in Las Vegas, Nevada on Saturday night. All three judges scored it 114-112 in favor of Taylor, who became just the sixth man in boxing history to be crowned undisputed champ in the modern four-belt era. By adding the WBC and WBO titles to his WBA and IBF straps, Taylor also joins Terence Crawford as the only two junior welterweight undisputed champions in the history of the sweet science.
"There's a new warrior king, and he's from Scotland," Taylor proclaimed fresh off his victory. "Anybody who wants to fight ... let's go!"
Fireworks were traded over the first five rounds, with Taylor getting the better of the action behind the jab and boxing tactics — like a shoulder in the clinch to create space. Then, in the sixth round, Taylor began changing the complexion of the fight for good. He swiftly ducked under a right hand from Ramirez before blasting him with a counter left hook to score the first knockdown of the fight just seconds into the round. Ramirez crashed face-first to the canvas but made it up to survive the round.
That being said, it got worse for Ramirez in the seventh, when Taylor detonated a scintillating left uppercut, which he really wound up before landing it with dynamite.
The shot dropped Ramirez with a thud, and although he valiantly fought on, even winning a few rounds thereafter, he couldn't recover from the damage already done.
In handing Ramirez (26-1, 17 KOs) his first loss, Taylor improves to 18-0 with 13 KOs. Earlier in the week, Taylor spoke about possibly facing Crawford at some point in the near future, and it remains to be seen if that fight can come to fruition.
Until then, here's how the entire Taylor vs. Ramirez main card went.