"Disgusting" - Dillian Whyte, Liam Smith, and more react to Josh Taylor vs. Jack Catterall 'robbery'

Josh Taylor took on Jack Catterall at the SSE Hydro in Scotland on 26 February. The boxing world, however, was not impressed with how the fight was called. Jack Catterall outboxed the undisputed Light Welterweight Champion in a way that no one has been able to.

Taylor somehow managed to scrape out a split-decision victory over his WBO mandatory challenger. However, many from the boxing world were left unimpressed with the decision.

Dillian Whyte, who is to fight Tyson Fury next, labeled the result as "disgusting."

Despite being completely silent on social media for the last few weeks, the split decision forced even Dillian Whyte to tweet about it. Whyte probably feels for Catterall, since he will be in the same position, challenging the champion Tyson Fury in his next fight.

Liam Smith also wasn't best pleased with the decision:

"Big fan of Josh Taylor, that was disgusting."

Combat sports journalist Ariel Helwani also chimed in with his thoughts:

"This is why people have lost faith in boxing. Boxing will never die — it’s alive and well — but golly do these decisions hurt the sport. Saddest part? You could see it coming a mile away. Gotta run this back right away. Otherwise it’s a stain on Josh Taylor’s career."

Twitter erupted following Taylor's win with #robbery and #robbed trending. Many fans, boxing analysts and pros agreed that this was indeed one of the worst decisions the sport had witnessed. Some also claimed that outcomes like these have reduced the popularity of boxing.

What was supposed to be an easy title defense for 'The Tartan Tornado' at home turned out to be his toughest fight yet. Taylor, probably for the first time in his career, looked lost and confused inside the ring. Catterall took the fight to Taylor early on, engaging in the clinch and dominating the first few rounds. Catterall threw more punches and even landed more punches against the champion

Taylor did win some of the later rounds. However, even the commentators believed that Catterall was the better fighter on the night.

---

Josh Taylor believes he did enough to win the fight against Jack Catterall

In his post-fight interview, 'The Tartan Tornado' believed he had done enough to secure victory against Catterall:

"Yeah hundred percent. Yeah, I thought I started a little slow, thought I started a little slow, but once I got into my rhythm and started getting my timing in a little bit, I started catching him with the bigger shots. And you know, he was trying to spoil a lot, you know going down an awful lot, I clashed a lot of heads."

Take a look at the interview:

Taylor re-iterated in multiple other post-fight interviews that he did enough in the second half of the fight to win. It will be interesting to see if Taylor does run it back with Catterall, given how many believe the champion lost this fight.