Arum says Catterall vs Taylor rubber match warranted

Jack Catterall took a clear points decision over Josh Taylor in their long awaited rematch.

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum continues to admit that he wasn’t thrilled with the official scorecards in the rematch between Josh Taylor and Jack Catterall, where Catterall took a unanimous decision on scores of 116-113 and 117-111, and 117-111. Talking to Sky Sports, Arum says he was in person for that fight and he’s convinced the scores were too wide in Catterall’s favor.

“Let me clarify. I was in Leeds for that fight. I watched that fight carefully. There were three possible ways to score the fight: 7-5 Catterall [in rounds], 7-5 Taylor, 6-6 even,” Arum told Sky Sports.

Arum would continue by saying that the official scores from the judges were unacceptable even though he stopped short of making any accusations of corruption. With that being said, he does believe Taylor wasn’t done any favors which prompted his post-fight reaction.

“I was really teed off because Taylor is my fighter, we promote him. But it wasn’t necessarily because I thought he clearly won the fight. I just thought it was a disservice to him that the scorecards were so wide. I was sitting next to Eddie Hearn, whose fighter was Catterall, and he was scoring the fight and we had it a very, very close fight.”

In light of the result and the split between Taylor and Catterall over two fights, Arum believes it naturally deserves a third fight, particularly given the fan reaction to the event, but says he’ll have to see how that really all comes together at this point.