Taylor vs Catterall Odds: Back the Tartan Tornado to show the UK how special he is

After the excitement of last week's massive Welterweight grudge match, we have another domestic dust up in the Super Lightweight division between the Undisputed champion, Scotland's Josh Taylor, and his mandatory challenger, England's Jack Catterall. After his successful tips last week , we've asked our own fighting man @OddsTerrier, to look into this intriguing clash and he's picked out his best two bets for your attention. 

Where and when is the fight taking place?

The fight will be held at the OVO Hyo Arena in Glasgow on Saturday February 26th and will be broadcast live on Sky Sports Main Event. The event will start at 7pm with the ring walks for the main event expected around 10.30pm. The card is a BOXXER promotion by Ben Shalom. 

Full Fight card:

Order and times TBC

• MAIN EVENT: Josh Taylor vs Jack Catterall – for WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO and The Ring super-lightweight titles
• Robeisy Ramirez vs Eric Donovan
• Nick Campbell vs Jay McFarlane
• Bilal Fawaz vs Malam Varela
• Ebonie Jones vs Eftychia Kathopouli
• Cori Gibbs vs Carlos Perez
• Paddy Donovan vs Miroslav Serban
• Scott Forrest vs Erik Nazaryan
• Kurt Walker vs Jaroslav Hriadel
• Kieran Molloy vs Damian Esquisabel
• Mark McKeown vs Laszlo Szoke

Josh Taylor fights back in his native Scotland on Saturday night for the first time since 2019, when he outpointed Ivan Baranchyk to win his first Super Lightweight strap (IBF) . Since then the 31-year-old has completed his dominance in the division, picking up the WBA title in a cracking World Boxing Super Series final against Regis Prograis and then completed the set with a comprehensive victory over WBC and WBO champ José Ramírez. He now faces his mandatory challenger Jack Catterall before a long rumoured move into the mega-money Welterweight division. 

Catterall is a massive outsider for this fight. The bookies have Taylor at 1/11 to win the fight, Catterall is around 9/1 and the draw is 25/1. Many boxing observers back that view, although the undefeated 28-year-old from Chorley appeared quietly confident in the recent Gloves are Off episode. Taylor of course is confidence personified, recently stating :

 "I am very confident in my ability, very confident in winning this fight. I know I am going to win, hands down.  It would have to be someone like King Kong to beat me in here. Even then, I think it would be a hard task for King Kong. I feel a giant inside the Hydro, [the fans] make me feel like I am unbeatable."

I've got to agree with the bookmakers on this occasion and completely expect Taylor to win this one. Josh is a special fighter and is fighting like an aggrieved man. He quite rightly thinks his boxing achievements have been over looked; Taylor was Britain's first ever undisputed World Champion in the four-belt era but as most of it was done out of the UK and late at night, a lot went unnoticed by the Great British public. A SPOTY snub followed, where Tyson Fury was nominated for far less and Taylor hates the fact that the likes of Jake Paul is getting more attention that a man right at the top of his boxing game. This will only fuel his fire for a fight back in front of a capacity 15,000 Hydro Arena home crowd and I can see Taylor wanting to make a statement here. Catterall is a very good domestic/European level fighter but he will likely be outclassed here against one of the world's pound-for-pound best. 

Taylor is as short as 4/6 to win by KO, whereas we can get the fight to end early at 8/13, which covers the unlikely event that Catterall pulls off a huge KO shock. I'll be taking this as my main bet of the night. 

My second selection is a bit of a doubling down on our first pick. I strongly expect Josh to win by KO but Catterall is durable and elusive so I don't expect an early finish here. However, what I can foresee is an accumulation of punches will result in either the referee stepping in to prevent any more damage or Catterall's trainer Nigel Travis will throw in the white towel, to save his fighter for another day. Catterall will be given every chance to try to achieve his dream but in the championship rounds, Taylor will likely get his man. 

He's 3/1 to win in rounds 9-12.

Good luck on the selections and enjoy what should be another good night of boxing.