Josh Taylor decisions Jose Ramirez in title fight

Josh Taylor scoffed at the scorecards Saturday night inside the Theater at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas. Sure, they unanimously awarded him the undisputed junior welterweight championship. But the consensus 114-112 score didn’t seem to sit right with him.

“I thought they were well wider than that,” Taylor said, moments after beating Jose Ramirez via decision. “I wasn’t too happy with the selection of the judges, but I wasn’t going to moan. I was confident in winning this fight anyway.”

Understandably so.

Taylor (18-0, 13 knockouts) knocked down Ramirez in the sixth and seventh rounds of their undisputed 140-pound title fight to secure his WBC and WBO titles — and become the fifth undisputed champion in boxing’s four-belt era.

The 30-year-old already had the IBF and WBA belts and became the second undisputed champion from Scotland, joining his idol, Ken Buchanan, who won the undisputed lightweight championship in 1971.

“I’ve trained my whole life for this,” Taylor said.

Taylor and Ramirez emerged as the class of the junior welterweight division, capturing two titles apiece to set up their showdown. Taylor had beaten Ivan Baranchyk for the IBF title on May 18, 2019 — adding the WBA title five months later with a victory over Regis Prograis.

Ramirez won the vacant WBC crown against Amir Imam on March 17, 2018, and added the WBO title with a victory the following summer over Maurice Hooker.

Ramirez was the more aggressive fighter Saturday, pressuring Taylor throughout the course of the 12-round affair. But Taylor was more tactical, bobbing, weaving and throwing punches from different angles to disrupt whatever rhythm Ramirez hoped to develop. He dropped Ramirez with a short counter left in the sixth round and followed in the seventh with a crisp left uppercut after a clinch.

The two knockdowns ultimately decided the fight, though Taylor said the scorecards were a “farce.”

“I think I got a little careless with the clinching,” Ramirez said. “That was my mistake. Those are some of the experiences I have to go through to be more mature and be a better fighter.”

Ramirez (26-1, 17 KOs) attempted to rally, but his punches lacked the necessary power to stymie Taylor, who smartly clinched at any sign of trouble.

Ramirez threw 584 punches compared to 530 for Taylor, according to CompuBox. But Taylor connected at a higher clip, landing 27 percent of his attempts to Ramirez’s 23 percent.

Taylor was the more talkative of the two during the promotion in an effort to goad Ramirez into fighting more aggressively. The strategy was successful.

“This week was no disrespect,” Taylor said. “It was all part of the mind games to get in his head, to make him more eager to jump in at me and be more aggressive, to use his aggression against him.”

Taylor is boxing’s first undisputed champion since 2017, when pound-for-pound juggernaut Terence Crawford unified the junior welterweight division. Crawford is a welterweight now and could be an opponent for Taylor.

Taylor said he wouldn’t mind moving up to welterweight to fight Crawford. But that would be in the future, and Taylor is savoring Saturday’s spoils.

“This has been 15 years in the making,” Taylor said. “It’s finally paid off.”

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.