Josh ‘The Tartan Tornado’ Taylor 19-0 (13) is expected to take on WBC mandatory challenger Jose ‘Chon’ Zepeda 35-2 (27) in an all southpaw bout in his next fight.
The 31-year-old Scotsman, who unified the junior welterweight division one year ago but was stripped of his WBA belt this month, had previously flagged a move up in weight to the lucrative welterweight division but now seems likely to have one more bout at 140-pounds.
Taylor’s team confirmed they were in negotiations to finalise the fight.
American Zepeda, 32, engaged in the Ring Magazine’s Fight on the Year in 2020 when he defeat Ivan Baranchyk by fifth-round knockout. Both boxers found themselves on the canvas four times.
Zepeda outpointed Henry Lundy over 10 in May last year before knocking out Josue Vargas in the opening frame last October.
A Taylor-Zepeda fight promises to be explosive but the reigning champion will likely enter the bout a sizeable favourite.
“Zepeda is coming off a fight of the year performance against Baranchyk and a first-round KO of Vargas in October,” Top Rank president Todd duBoef told Sky Sports.
“These together have earned him the mandatory position to Josh’s WBC crown.
“We are working with both teams to put this fight on next.”
Taylor unified the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO belts when he defeated Jose Carlos Ramirez by unanimous decision in Las Vegas last May. He backed up this up with a controversial split decision win over WBO mandatory contender Jack Catterall in Glasgow in February. Many fans and pundits thought Catterall did more than enough to earn the nod.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman revealed there was an agreement in place between the four sanctioning bodies on the order of the mandatory title defences for Taylor, but claimed the WBA breached the agreement by trying to enforce their mandatory first.
“We have ordered that fight,” Sulaiman told Sky Sports. “We have a purse bid date, I believe it’s the 24th of this month.
“The issue here is we had an agreement. We met in Puerto Rico, the four presidents, Paco Valcarcel [of the WBO], Daryl Peoples [of the IBF], Gilberto Mendoza [of the WBA] and myself and we had an agreement.
“We sat down, we discussed that division and I was clear that [Jack] Catterall as WBO mandatory was next. Zepeda as WBC mandatory was next, and then the IBF mandatory was next.
“For some strange reason, the WBA simply went out and ordered another fight, and now they have taken away the title from Josh Taylor, or Josh relinquished. Whichever maybe, but it’s very unfortunate.
“We want to keep the mandatory unified champions. We want to have mandatory contenders that are of the highest level, but we will see what happens next.”
