By ERIC KNOPSNYDER
Andres Taylor’s boxing career is right on track, as he sees it.
Johnstown’s Taylor beat Manu Ntoh of Cameroon by unanimous decision on Saturday night in Altoona as part of Broad Avenue Brawlers 3, which combined boxing and MMA events.
“It was a good fight,” said Taylor, who is 13-1-1 as a pro with six knockouts. “The guy fought.
“He was a veteran like I thought. He had good ringsmanship. He knew how to fight. He was one of those guys that if you stopped working you’d lose that fight.”
Taylor doesn’t intend to stop working anytime soon. He hopes to soon have another fight – his third this year – lined up for March in the Pittsburgh area.
“I’m right on track,” Taylor said. “My goal is to be 19-1 at the end of the year. I’m now 13-1. I’ve got six more to go and we’ve got 10 more months to do it in.”
Taylor, who holds the World Boxing Foundation’s All Americas cruiserweight title, has a road map for his future. He hopes to fight for the North American Boxing Organization (NABO) title before the end of the year. If were able to win that, it would give him a top 10 ranking in the World Boxing Federation (WBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO), both of which are more prestigious than the NABO.
He even has picked out which championship he’d like to go after – Marco Huck’s WBO title.
“His style fits my style,” Taylor said of Huck, who fights out of Germany and is 27-1 with
20 KOs. “He’s not more of a finess boxer, he’s more of a brawler. Me and his style, it would mesh right.”
While wins over fighters like Ntoh, who is now 17-19-1 with 10 KOs, might not draw widespread attention, Taylor said it’s important for his learning curve.
“It’s extremely good for me, the experience,” he said. “You can’t beat that. If I would have blew the guy out in the first round, I would have looked like a superhero, but it wouldn’t have taught me anything.”
