Sometimes, when a fighter wins, he finds himself in the Who Needs Him Club but for Jack Catterall a career-best performance that ended up in a controversial defeat 15 months ago has rendered him inactive ever since.
The Chorley super-lightweight contender has not boxed since the night he gave Scottish star Josh Taylor all he could handle but he makes his long-awaited return to the ring on Saturday in Manchester against Darragh Foley.
Some fighters are excited on fight week, some are apprehensive and nervous, but there is little but relief in Catterall’s voice that, finally, he is back in the ring. And while the names of Taylor and Regis Prograis have never been far away from being linked to Catterall’s, Jack is not overlooking anybody because he knows he is on the verge of significant things, and a momentary slip would cost the 26-1 (13) southpaw dearly.
“For me, every fight going forward now is an important fight,” admitted the 29-year-old. “I would never disrespect an opponent by overlooking them, and I expect Foley to come over and be fully prepared, but I do believe I am level’s above him and I’m confident of showing that on Saturday. But I’m not one to tempt fate. I want to enjoy Saturday. It’s been 15 months, a lot of frustration and it’s pretty much my hometown of Manchester so I’m going to enjoy every second of it and if I get through it, I know there will be some great opportunities in the future.”
Fifteen months of a fighter’s prime is a long period to be without a bout. Catterall has been in the gym, preparing, waiting in a holding pattern, and yet there was a moment in the ring post-Taylor when Catterall thought he had the keys to the kingdom of big fights.
“I honestly thought after the [Taylor] performance, I believe I won the fight, and I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to get some fights, some opportunities and I’m going to build on the back of that.’ And I was going to be active and that was the key, really. Even leading up to the fight, I had stints of inactivity through no fault of my own. I’m always in the gym and it’s pretty frustrating. Then we had the promise of the rematch two or three times and that fell through. It has been frustrating but I can put all that to one side now. I’m a week out from a fight and I’m excited, training camp has gone well, the gym’s buzzing and I’m excited because, God willing, I know if I come through Saturday, the division’s getting busy and there’s going to be a lot of good fights to be made.”
After four fights in 2018, Catterall boxed just twice in 2019, once in 2020, not at all in 2021 and only against Taylor in 2022.
Explaining the inactivity, Catterall said: “It started way before I managed to get the title shot, then after the Josh fight it was a mix of political stuff. It was the rematch, Josh pulled out twice, one of the fights we were six weeks away, the day before it was to be announced… That got pulled twice, then they called for Teofimo [Lopez to face Taylor]. Then we had the contract thing with Boxxer [Catterall momentarily signed for Boxxer but didn’t fight for them] and through all that period I’ve been in the gym and surrounded myself with good people, [trainers] Jamie [Moore] and Nigel [Travis], and I’ve kept chipping away, working on my craft and I’m always a big believer in everything for a reason. It’s brought me to this point now, where I feel happy, I feel confident, I signed up with Eddie Hearn, Matchroom and DAZN, so I am excited now.”
While the Foley fight marks a new dawn for Catterall, he still has the lingering hope that he and Taylor’s paths cross again. Taylor fights Lopez in New York’s Madison Square Garden on June 10 but Catterall is focusing now on his own journey.
“I wouldn’t put a bet on it,” he replied, when asked whether he might face Taylor again. “I think Josh…. I get asked about the fight probably everyday still, in the shops, in different gyms, I’ve just left swimming with my daughter now and somebody’s mentioned it again, and that’s me, so I imagine Josh will get the same. I don’t know what circles he’s mixing in, but it’s certainly a question he will get asked and if the shoe was on the other foot, I would feel the need to revisit it, but we’re talking about Josh so we’ll see. Selfishly, I think I’ve just got to focus on my future and getting myself in a position for a world title and winning a world title. That moment with Josh has been and gone, but if that makes sense down the line, then it’s something I’d definitely be interested in.”
Then there is Prograis, who like Catterall has recently signed with Matchroom following a disruptive promotional journey from Probellum. Prograis and Catterall did not just talk up a good fight on social media, Catterall confirmed it came close to happening.
“Funnily enough, I think we pretty much had terms agreed before I went and signed with Matchroom and just before he did,” Catterall explained. “There was kind of like a period in between where there was a promotion that’s no longer… I don’t know if it’s a promotion or not… it just became complicated for me and it was quite frustrating but he [Prograis] was certainly down to fight and so was I. I turn 30 this year and although I believe I haven’t got many miles on the clock, and there’s some great fights to be made, I want to see how good I can be and Prograis is one of the fights where you’re talking about a two-time world champion and a great fighter and the only loss on both of our records is to the same man, so that’s a fight I’d definitely be interested in as well.”
The positive from the Taylor fight was that it launched Catterall into the consciousness of fight fans as a world class entity, and it confirmed to the fighter himself that he belonged in the mix at the top at 140lbs.
“It was a great build-up, great preparation, great training camp and I felt like a lot of people – and probably rightly so – didn’t give me a chance against Josh and aside from what I think of Josh, his boxing ability and what he’s achieved, I’ll be the first one to say congratulations on what he’s done,” Catterall added. “So I think what I did in that last fight proved a lot of people wrong and I proved to myself that I can mix it at that top level and you do get those butterflies and it does excite you where you main event and it’s a big deal.”
Until Catterall is back on the biggest stage, there will be a lot more work to do with coach Jamie Moore, someone Catterall feels an enormous debt of gratitude towards because of the inactivity he has experienced. Moore has still shown up, day in and day out, to the point that it has made Catterall feel guilty about being trained by the former European light-middleweight champion.
“I’d be in the gym everyday with Jamie and selfishly I think he’s spending that time with me every day and of course he’s got commitment to the sport, he’s a boxing coach, but I feel bad because you think he’s training me every day but when am I going to fight?” Catterall asked rhetorically. “When am I going to fight? It was always a case of, ‘Yes, we’ll have news soon,’ but that period felt like it went on forever, but I can finally close the door on that now.”
For Moore’s part, the coach said his fighter should never have felt like that because of the bond they share as mates.
“His friendship and the journey and the memories we’re had over the last few years is worth more happiness than any amount of money it can bring, so really it isn’t a thing,” Moore said. “When he gets to where I know he should be, then I’ll be happy.”
Happiness for Catterall is not just training in the gym with friends but having a date to work towards and he hopes that victory over Foley will catapult him into a form of activity he has not experienced in four years. It is one thing doing the work, it’s another thing enjoying the spoils of an end product. But Catterall has fallen through many promotional and managerial cracks in the last few years and he’s putting that behind him. He has moved away from the crumbled ruins of MTK and Probellum and hopes that this is a fresh, positive start.
“Honestly, I’ve got a couple of close people that I speak to that have been there day to day, that have kind of been around me to understand the position I’ve been in,” he said, talking about his promotional circumstances. “Again, through no fault of my own. I’ve never turned down a fight, I’ve been in the gym. I’ve been fit and ready, it’s just been a weird couple of years, from leaving Frank Warren to being with Probellum to not having a fight but signing with Boxxer, the collapse of MTK, the collapse and rebirth of Probellum and Disrupt. Contracts and lawyers… and I was glad to see the back of it. When I went down to the AJ [Anthony Joshua] fight [against Jermaine Franklin] and went to the weigh in and managed to announce my deal, I could breathe. I felt like a big weight had been lifted. It was a weird feeling.”
