Joe Taylor

Explosive Taylor wins on his professional debut

Ken Selleck, Boxing Correspondent Friday, July 13, 2012
9:00 AM

Hoxton boxer takes just 102 seconds to claim victory

Hoxton’s Joe Taylor took just one minute and 42 seconds of his professional debut to stop Hayes’ Michael Stupart on a Queensberry promotion last Thursday night at the York Hall, Bethnal Green.

The former Lion Club boxer came out throwing punches from the start, cutting down the distance between him and his much taller opponent, who also had a reach advantage.

After making Stupart miss with his left jab, Taylor was landing his own punches on target to both head and body.

And with Stupart trapped on the ropes near his own corner and taking too many head punches, referee Ken Curtis stepped in to call a halt to proceedings and call the fight off.

Taylor, who must have had more than 200 supporters in the hall on the night, told the Gazette after the fight: “I picked my punches and all my hard work has paid off.”

The Hoxton fighter’s trainer Gary Logan was pleased with his prospect’s work.

“He did everything that I asked of him and more,” he said. “He kept calm despite hearing all the noise that his supporters were making.”

On the undercard of the main event in which Liverpool’s Paul Butler outpointed Cheshunt’s Ashley Sexton by 98 points to 92, it was a win double for two former Repton BC boxers.

The first of these fighters into the ring was Tom Baker in a middleweight contest against Trowbridge’s Dan Blackwell, who never stopped coming forward for most of the four rounds.

However, Blackwell was having to take hard, stiff jabs from Baker and the Trowbridge’s man’s face was a mess from the blood pouring from his nose.

In the end, referee Robert Williams scored the fight to Baker by 40 points to 36.

Following Baker into the ring was super-flyweight Charlie Hoy, who was matched against Bulgarian Galin Paunov, who had a height and reach advantage over the former Repton man.

However, Hoy was too fast for Paunov, getting under his reach and landing jabs and hooks to his opponent’s head and body, with a right hook putting the Bulgarian down in round three.

Hoy was awarded the decision by referee Curtis by 40 points to 35.

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