Josh Taylor to take on Humberto Soto, March 3

Junior welterweight prospect Josh Taylor (11-0, 10 KOs) — who has quickly made my shortlist of fighters to watch — has officially been scheduled to defend his WBC silver title against Humberto Soto (66-9-2, 36 KOs) on March 3rd, per an ESPN report. The fight will take place at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow in a card promoted by Barry McGuigan’s Cyclone Promotions.

Taylor, 27, first truly caught my eye with an impressive display against Ohara Davies last summer, when he demonstrated some of the best body punching I’ve seen in quite some time. And not only did Taylor manage to make the then-highly-touted Davies quit in that fight, but he would go on to dominate Miguel Vazquez just a few months later (a fighter notoriously difficult to look good against).

So while Taylor appears to have all the makings of a future world champion through only 11 professional fights, he believes he’s just about seasoned enough to contend with the best out there - though he does admit he could a little bit more experience.

“There’s Mikey Garcia, Sergey Lipinets, Viktor Postol and Regis Prograis and any one of them could be a potential fight and I’m ready to take on any of them. If and when the opportunity comes I’ll be ready.

”I believe ability wise, I’m ready now. Realistically, I probably need a couple more fights of developing so when the opportunity comes, I’m ready.”

All of those would be really good fights to make, particularly the Garcia fight, but that’s mostly because I believe Taylor’s ceiling is high enough to warrant that kind of challenge.

I seriously doubt Taylor will struggle much with the 37-year-old Soto, but it’s a fair ask of a fight being he’s still relatively new to the professional ranks.

So, I guess the real question is how good do you think Taylor is? Is he ready to contend for a title now? What kind of shot would you give him against the likes of Garcia, Postol, and Prograis if he were to face them this year? Sound off in the comments below.