Josh Taylor isn’t sure when his rematch with Jack Catterall will finally take place, but the unbeaten 140-pound champion still feels he needs to prove his superiority over Catterall in a second fight.

Their rematch wasn’t rescheduled after Taylor suffered a foot injury in January because the WBO later ordered Taylor to defend his junior welterweight title against mandatory challenger Teofimo Lopez next. Scotland’s Taylor (19-0, 13 KOs) and Brooklyn’s Lopez (18-1, 13 KOs) will square off Saturday night in a 12-round main event ESPN will televise from The Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Taylor admits he performed poorly against Catterall, however, and he wants to atone for what the Scottish southpaw considers the worst night of his career. Catterall dropped Taylor early in the eighth round, but the mandatory challenger for Taylor’s WBO belt had a point deducted for holding during the 10th round and lost a questionable split decision in February 2022 at The SSE Hydro in Glasgow, Scotland.

“At some point we’ll be fighting again,” Taylor told BoxingScene.com. “We’ll cross paths again at some point – absolutely. I just need to shut him up, really. He’s not on my level. I had a bad, terrible night. He had the greatest night of his life and still haven’t done enough. He is two or three levels below me and I’m gonna go and prove that again, which all champions do when they have bad performances.

“It’s been done over and over, time and time again in rematches. But that is the plan. But we’ll wait and see what happens. I’m pretty sure he’s got his own path that he’s on with Matchroom and stuff, so we’ll see what happens. But it’s definitely a fight I wanna revisit.”

The Taylor-Catterall rematch was first pushed back from February 4 to March 4 to accommodate the preferred schedule of British broadcaster Sky Sports. Late in January, however, it was postponed indefinitely due to a tear of the plantar fascia tendon in Taylor’s foot.

Once it became clear Taylor would oppose Lopez next, Catterall scheduled a fight against Australia’s Darragh Foley. England’s Catterall (27-1, 13 KOs) dropped Foley (22-5-1, 10 KOs) once apiece in the seventh and ninth rounds and beat him by unanimous decision in their 10-round match May 27 at AO Arena in Manchester, England.

DAZN streamed Catterall’s victory over Foley as part of the southpaw’s new promotional contract with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing. Taylor is promoted by Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc., but Taylor doesn’t view their contracts with competing promoters and platforms as obstacles that’ll prevent them from fighting again.

“We’ll see what happens,” Taylor said. “We’ll see what comes my way, see what offers I get, if anybody else is there. … We just need to wait and see what fight comes after this fight. I’m not thinking about anything else apart from Teofimo Lopez right now. He’s all that’s on my mind, doing a destruction job on Teofimo.”

Taylor will fight for the first time against Lopez in the 15 months since he edged Catterall on the scorecards of judges Ian-John Lewis (114-111) and Victor Loughlin (113-112). Judge Howard Foster scored Catterall a 113-112 winner over Taylor.

If referee Marcus McDonnell hadn’t taken a point from Catterall in the 10th round, Taylor-Catterall would’ve resulted in a split draw because Loughlin would’ve had it even (113-113). Taylor also had a point deducted for hitting Catterall after the bell sounded to end the 11th round.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.