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Bullish Josh Taylor has warned title challenger Teofimo Lopez he will be at the peak of his powers on Saturday night as he bids to reign at Madison Square Garden. The 32-year-old Scot will take to the ring for the first time since his contentious victory, via a split decision, over England’s Jack Catterall in February 2022. Taylor knows he was not at his best that night in Glasgow almost 16 months ago, but he is adamant he will be firing on all cylinders as he goes head to head with 25-year-old Brooklyn boxer Lopez in their WBO super-lightweight title showdown in New York. “We could both go on our previous performances and say ‘you’re only as good as your last fight’ but I believe that’s a lot of s***,” said Taylor. “I prepared crap for the last fight so I performed crap. I believe he was the same (when winning by a split decision against Sandor Martin last December). He took his eye off the ball and he performed crap as well. “We’ve both got the bit between our teeth here. He’s up against the king of the division. I know he’s a good fighter. The version that beat (Vasyl) Lomachenko (in October 2020) is a very good fighter and that’s the version I’m preparing for. “It’s all about your preparation. This time I’ve prepared diligently and to the best of my ability, and you’ll see the best of me on Saturday night.” Taylor admits he is living out a childhood dream in topping the bill at the Garden. “I’ve been here 10-12 days now,” he said of his preparations in New York. “I came over nice and early to get used to the heat. “I was expecting the heat but it’s not been so hot. It’s been OK for me being Scottish, used to the cold weather, so I haven’t had to adjust too much. “I’m excited to be here. To be involved in a big fight and the main event like this, doing the Empire State Building and stuff like that, it’s really cool. “This is a dream come true. Starting out as a young kid, you always dream of coming stateside and fighting in venues like this. “This is the ‘Mecca of Boxing’, Madison Square Garden. Fighting in a place like this, topping the bill, bringing the travelling fans – the Tartan Army – over as well, so I can’t wait to get in there to make this dream become a reality. “This clown here (Lopez) is in my way but he’s another piece of cannon fodder, that’s all he is.” The fight is due to begin around 3am BST on Sunday. Read More Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez live stream: How to watch fight online and on TV tonight Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez time: When does fight start in UK and US tonight? Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez card: Who else is fighting tonight?

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First, Chris Billam-Smith was raised aloft. As Shane McGuigan hauled his fighter’s hulking frame into the air, for the adoring mass of fans to see, the cruiserweight’s face vanished behind his gloves. Somewhere under the battered leather, his left eye – swollen half-shut – closed completely. So did the right, trying to trap the tears. Inevitably, the dam broke. The stream washed away his sweat, while his bawls were drowned out by the flood of noise around him. Then, the cruiserweight sank to his knees, all 6ft of him reduced to the stature of a boy who once dreamt of this very moment. Or rather, this meshing of moments. To a young Billam-Smith, fighting in front of a sold-out crowd at the home of his beloved AFC Bournemouth would have represented a dream fulfilled; so would winning a world title. Doing both on the same night? If that plays like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster, then it is the kind of moment that one would deride for stretching our suspension of disbelief a fibre too far. Boxing is not Hollywood. Boxing does not provide fairytale endings. Boxing is unforgiving, and cruel. But if any boxer has earnt a mote of kindness from this sport, it is Billam-Smith. It was granted in the form of his decision win over former teammate Lawrence Okolie last month, but it should not be taken for granted. Nor could it have been when “112-112” was the first scorecard to boom over the PA at Dean Court. “I remember listening and thinking... like frowning,” Billam-Smith, 32, tells The Independent, with stitches still hovering over his left eye. “I wasn’t really listening to the [other] scores, but I just knew it was obviously a majority decision. If I had listened, I think I would have known [I’d won] because obviously one of them was a 107, and that couldn’t have been me because I had no points deducted and wasn’t knocked down or anything. Obviously I was just waiting for them to say ‘and new’. He said it, and a wave of emotion came over me. I was just thinking, ‘I’ve done it.’ I just couldn't believe it. It was such... it’s been such a long journey.” As Billam-Smith knelt in the ring, his face soaked in tears, his mother came to his mind. Dedicating his victory to her, Billam-Smith revealed in the ring that she is battling cancer. “Obviously at the moment, with my mum being unwell and stuff,” he tells The Independent, “for it to be all worth it and worth all the hard graft put in over the years, the years of not earning any money as an amateur and even early on as a pro – not earning a huge amount of money and scraping by at times... To finally to do it and achieve my ultimate dream of winning a world title at the stadium, it was just... You can’t really put it into words to be honest with you. “I had so many reasons to win; I had 15,000 people there that I couldn’t let down, my mum, my wife, my son. I was never going in there without giving it 100 per cent, because of all those reasons. And obviously for myself as well, with the growth through the years. Yeah, my mum obviously was a huge part of that as well.” So was Billam-Smith’s son, Frank, as he says. “Having to miss my son’s first birthday the day before the fight, that’s a completely different emotion. It’s weird; he has no idea what’s going on, doesn’t know that I missed his birthday – thankfully – to stand half-naked in front of loads of people at Bournemouth pier. You know, it’d be amazing for him to grow up and hopefully be proud of his dad.” These various factors, and the emotional weight loaded into each of them, had to be put aside for the sake of performance; so did the sense of occasion around fighting at Dean Court. “On the Friday, I went and sat in my old season-ticket seat and just looked at the set-up,” says Billam-Smith. “I was like, ‘This is crazy.’ The ring-walk rehearsal was very important for me to visualise how everything was going to be, so it wasn’t overwhelming and I wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, this is actually happening.’ [During the actual ring walk], there’s a point where I sort of look around and just nod to myself. Like, I’m still very much in the zone and focused and staying calm, but I thought: ‘This is awesome.’ “[In the fight], I very much had blinkers on. All the visualisation helped. I was very calm in the ring and the whole time in the build-up, just thinking about those 12 rounds and how I was going to react – making sure I reacted logically to every situation.” Billam-Smith did just that, capping off an eclectic trilogy of fights across the last 11 months. First, there was his war with Isaac Chamberlain, which ended as a points victory in Billam-Smith’s favour, then his knockout-of-the-year candidate against Armend Xhoxhaj in December, before this often-bitty bout with Okolie. The 12 rounds against Okolie will not be what fans remember from this particular night, however. They will remember the aftermath – the stirring scenes of a dream being realised in real time. “Now it’s about creating another dream,” says Billam-Smith, looking ahead to the future. “You know, I’d love to fight in Las Vegas, but most importantly I need to secure my family’s future financially. And I’m not the finished article as a boxer. “In any sport I’ve ever played, I’ve always just wanted to give it 100 per cent and improve. That’s still the same me now.” Lorton Entertainment’s“STABLE”, a four-part documentary series covering Shane McGuigan’s work with his fighters, will be released this Autumn. Read More Leigh Wood and Chris Billam-Smith win world titles with victories over familiar foes How a unique night of action could lay groundwork for future super-fight ‘I could kill a guy and get away with it’: Teofimo Lopez is treading a disturbing path through boxing How unique night of action could lay groundwork for future super-fight Leigh Wood and Chris Billam-Smith win world titles with victories over familiar foes Boxxer’s Ben Shalom: ‘I sacrificed my twenties, I sacrificed absolutely everything’

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All that was visible of Teofimo Lopez was his left sleeve, the white of his jumper beaming in the dark. The orange flash of a street lamp splashed through the car, where the boxer reclined in the backseat. He leant forward, easing his body out of the shadows. His face, however, remained obscured by the rear-view mirror. “One thing I love about my sport: I could kill a guy and get away with it.” In the driver’s seat, Lopez Sr whipped his gaze from the road to his phone screen. His face cracked into a cackle. “You gotta edit that one!” he laughed, somewhat uneasily, aiming the request at Eddie Gomez on the other end of the call – on the other side of the split-screen. Gomez, best known as the host of Punsh Drunk Boxing, howled a laugh back down the line. “No, you can’t edit that,” came the call from the backseat, street lamps now strobing against the shadows. “Don’t edit that.” *** It was on 17 October 2020 that Teofimo Lopez became a unified world champion. In the depths of lockdown, in a hollow hall inside MGM Grand Arena, in front of a lean crew of nameless masks, the American launched an oppressive offensive against Vasiliy Lomachenko. That offence was in fact suppressed as the fight wore on, but at the end of 12 rounds – having thrown 659 punches to the Ukrainian’s 321, and having just survived a foreboding comeback – Lopez would leave Las Vegas with Lomachenko’s titles, adding them to the one he had brought with him. The result, a unanimous decision, surprised many. It surprised those who had predicted a customary win for a generational great; it surprised those who had witnessed Lomachenko fight back from the brink to threaten Lopez’s early lead. It did not, however, surprise either Teofimo Lopez in the building. The Brooklyn-born, 25-year-old Lopez – 23 at the time – had never doubted the outcome. Nor had his father. The pair have long walked a thin, fragile line between confidence and delusion, but Lopez Jr had never been beaten and they could not entertain the notion that any fighter would change that fact; not even Lomachenko. As his father hoisted him aloft, a tearful Lopez Jr preached to a near-empty room that the result had been inevitable, even from his days as an Olympian representing Honduras in 2006. The fight was close, but for Lopez, it was career-making. He was the youngest boxer to hold four belts at once in the history of the sport. The problem for the American was that his next fight was equally close, but career-making for George Kambosos Jr. Lopez had touched the mat in Round 2, a shotgun right hand collapsing the champion to the canvas. Kambosos Jr, too, was forced to climb off the mat before all was said and done, toppled off balance and off his feet in Round 10. But it was the Australian who would have the world titles to show for his sacrifices across 36 minutes. What did Lopez have to show? Little more than bruises stamped over his eyes, highlighted by smeary circles of blood. Incredulous, the American began his celebrations anyway. Somewhere inside, however, Lopez recognised that changes had to be made, even if he would never admit as much in words. And so the “Takeover”, beginning a fresh bid to become world champion, underwent a makeover. *** Returning at 140lbs, kickstarting a pursuit of super-lightweight gold, Lopez took on Pedro Campa in August 2022. Lopez had won every round on each judge’s scorecard when, in Round 7, he quite literally danced into range. Bullying Campa with hooks and uppercuts as the Mexican offered few signs of response or escape, Lopez forced the stoppage. The simple vein of victory was a welcome one for Lopez after his back-to-back, brutal battles with Lomachenko and Kambosos. The simplicity of such a win was short-lived, however, with his next bout proving surprisingly challenging and ushering in a concerning phase in Lopez’s still-young career. Sandor Martin, stepping in on short notice in December, fought through a broken nose – brought on by a clash of heads in the very first round – to drop Lopez twice, only to watch the win elude him in a moment of cliched boxing injustice. That was how most observers saw it, ESPN’s commentary team included. It was not, of course, how Lopez saw it, even though he was heard asking his team after the bout: “Bro, do I still have it, man? Do I still got it?” Later, speaking to Punsh Drunk Boxing from the back of a car, moments after relishing in the thought that he might kill a man in the ring someday, Lopez said: “At the fighter meeting [before the bout], I dissed [analysts] Andre Ward and Timothy Bradley in front of ESPN’s production. [I dissed] all of them for all their affiliation and corruption that they do. And what happened? When I slipped with the first knockdown they called, what did Bradley say right away? ‘He’s hurt, he’s hurt.’” With residual resentment coursing through him, Lopez looked ahead to his next fight, June’s clash with WBO champion Josh Taylor – a man who has courted a few controversies in his time. “This is my last fight on ESPN,” Lopez said of his bout with the Scot. “This is why this fight means everything. “If they want the black fighters, they can keep them.” According to Lopez Sr, his son’s comment – which was cut from the interview but not before viewers had shared it on Twitter – was not racially motivated. Lopez Jr, for his part, has claimed that his words are often twisted. “I don’t apologise for any of the stuff that I say. If you ever take it wrong, then that’s on you, because I never take it to that extreme. I just speak a certain kind of way, strategically, on one specific thing. Others will turn my words and switch it around, and do what they gotta do to play with it.” Perhaps, though, the words are simply twisted in essence. There is an irony to Lopez claiming that they are taken out of context while saying plainly: “I said it like it is. I want to kill Josh Taylor.” Again speaking to Punsh Drunk Boxing, who are arguably enabling him at this point, Lopez said: “This is a kill-or-be-killed sport. I mean, someone [Kenneth Egano] just passed away; 6 May, a kid, 22 years old, passed away. [Still], I said it like it is: I want to kill Josh Taylor. “What the f*** does that mean? People are like, ‘Well, let’s get back to boxing.’ I’m like, ‘That is boxing.’ This is what we sign up for. You’re gonna probably lose your life. If I’m gonna die in that ring, at least I died for something bigger than me and some integrity. I went out there like a warrior [...] Boxing is that, it’s: ‘You’re gonna die – maybe. You may die.’” As much as Lopez seeks to add a noble sheen to these sentiments, they are troubling words – enough so to suggest that he may be a troubled young man. He is, of course, just that: young, with time to learn. Yet he is already a father, and as it stands, he is surrounded by people who seem content to watch him – and help him – sabotage himself. Teofimo Lopez is treading a disturbing path through boxing. The concern is that no one seems to be putting him on the right track. Read More Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez live stream: How to watch fight online and on TV this weekend ‘We’re dealing with a freak’: Meet Adam Azim, the 20-year-old boxer scaring world champions The Independent’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings Who is fighting on Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez undercard this weekend? What time does Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez start in UK and US this weekend? How to watch Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez online and on TV this weekend

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Josh Taylor has a point to prove when he takes on Teofimo Lopez this weekend, with the WBO super-lightweight title on the line in New York City. Taylor has not fought since February 2022, when he retained the undisputed titles with a controversial decision against Jack Catterall in Glasgow. The unbeaten Scot later vacated two of the belts and was stripped of another as he focused on a rematch with Catterall, which fell through earlier this year. The collapse of that fight led to the announcement of this one, however, with 32-year-old Taylor defending his remaining title against Lopez, a former unified lightweight champion. Lopez, 25, outpointed Vasiliy Lomachenko to win the lightweight belts in 2020, before losing them to George Kambosos Jr in 2021. The American has since bounced back from that sole professional loss with two straight wins at super-lightweight, though, stopping Pedro Campa in August and winning a debated decision against Sandor Martin in December. Here’s all you need to know. When is it? The fight will take place on Saturday 10 June, at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre in New York City. The main card is set to begin at 1am BST on Sunday 11 June (5pm PT, 7pm CT, 8pm ET). Ring walks for the main event are then due at approximately 4am BST (8pm PT, 10pm CT, 11pm ET). How can I watch it? In the US, the event will air live on ESPN and ESPN+. In the UK, Sky Sports will broadcast the fights. Sky Sports subscribers can watch the event live on TV, as well as on the broadcaster’s website and Sky Go app. Odds Taylor – 8/13 Lopez – 11/8 Draw – 12/1 Full odds via Betway. Full card (more fights to be confirmed) Josh Taylor (C) vs Teofimo Lopez (WBO super-lightweight title) Click here to subscribe to The Independent’s Sport YouTube channel for all the latest sports videos. Read More The Independent’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings Joe Rogan is right: Tyson Fury has ‘no chance in hell’ against Jon Jones Why is BT Sport being rebranded to TNT Sports? Eurosport merger explained Who is fighting on Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez undercard this weekend? What time does Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez start in UK and US this weekend? The Independent’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings

Josh Taylor and Teofimo Lopez are both out to make a statement at the other’s expense this weekend, with each fighter entering New York City on the back of a controversial win. The undefeated Taylor, 32, last fought 15 months ago, when he retained the undisputed super-lightweight titles against Jack Catterall in Glasgow. Most fans and pundits believed that Taylor had been beaten, however, and the Scot later vacated two of his belts and was stripped of another as he pursued a rematch with Catterall. That bout fell through earlier this year, though, leading to this weekend’s main event, in which Taylor defends his remaining title – the WBO belt – against former lightweight champion Lopez. Lopez, 25, took the unified lightweight belts from Vasiliy Lomachenko in 2020, but the American dropped them to George Kambosos Jr in 2021. He has since responded to that sole professional loss with back-to-back wins at super-lightweight, however, stopping Pedro Campa in August and controversially outpointing Sandor Martin in December. Here’s all you need to know. When is it? The fight will take place on Saturday 10 June, at Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theatre in New York City. The main card is set to begin at 1am BST on Sunday 11 June (5pm PT, 7pm CT, 8pm ET). Ring walks for the main event are then due at approximately 4am BST (8pm PT, 10pm CT, 11pm ET). How can I watch it? In the US, the event will air live on ESPN and ESPN+. In the UK, Sky Sports will broadcast the fights. Sky Sports subscribers can watch the event live on TV, as well as on the broadcaster’s website and Sky Go app. Odds Taylor – 8/13 Lopez – 11/8 Draw – 12/1 Full odds via Betway. Full card (more fights to be confirmed) Josh Taylor (C) vs Teofimo Lopez (WBO super-lightweight title) Click here to subscribe to The Independent’s Sport YouTube channel for all the latest sports videos. Read More The Independent’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings Joe Rogan is right: Tyson Fury has ‘no chance in hell’ against Jon Jones Why is BT Sport being rebranded to TNT Sports? Eurosport merger explained Who is fighting on Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez undercard this weekend? How to watch Josh Taylor vs Teofimo Lopez online and on TV this weekend The Independent’s pound-for-pound boxing rankings