JOHNSTOWN — Andres “TaylorMade” Taylor saw an opportunity and he took it – both in his fight with Julius Fogal on Thursday night and the door that it opened for him.

The Johnstown fighter knocked Fogal down three times and won by unanimous decision at the Pasquerilla Conference Center to retain his World Boxing Foundation All Americas Cruiserweight title. Just as importantly, it made Taylor (15-1-1, 6 KOs) eligible to fight for the vacant WBF world title.

“It opens a great opportunity,” Taylor said of the victory. “There’s a vacant world title, and I’m next in line for it.

“We’ll be sitting down and discussing what’s going to go on with that.”

Taylor isn’t sure when his title shot will come, but he hopes it isn’t too far in the future.

“Maybe the end of this year, the beginning of next year,” he said. “I’m feeling good. I’m excited about it. We’ll make it happen.”

Taylor made things happen throughout the fight with Fogal. He chased the smaller fighter for much of the fight on the way to a 79-71, 78-71, 79-70 victory.

Taylor came close to knocking Fogal (15-5) out in the eighth and final round, but the Cary, N.C., fighter was able to stay on his feet after being knocked down twice in the round. Taylor credited his trainer, Tom Yankello, with the strategy to dominate the final round.

“My trainer said, ‘Keep feinting him. Feint him one way and go the other way,’ ” Taylor recalled. “I feinted him left, he went right, I threw the right hook and caught him clean on the chin.

“He went down. He came again, I hit him again and he went down.”

Fogal was on the ropes for an extended period of time after the two knockdowns, but Taylor couldn’t finish him, even as the partisan crowd chanted “TaylorMade.”

“Last round, dropped him, thought it was over for him, but he survived,” Taylor said. “I got a little too anxious.

“You’ve got to step back, take your time and make the knockout come.”

Taylor also scored a knockdown in the fifth, although Fogal disputed that one.

“It wasn’t really a knockdown,” Fogal said. “It was a headbutt - he came up.

“He keeps his head down, and he came up. I kind of lost where he was at, so I took a knee, but the referee didn’t see it.”

Taylor’s fight was the main event of the “TaylorMade War” card. Pittsburgh’s Rayco “War” Saunders scored a unanimous decision over Manu Ntoh in the co-main event, but not in the style that Saunders is accustomed to.

Ntoh, who is built like a bowling ball and has all of the lateral movement of one, put his head down and pushed straight ahead against the much taller Saunders. It wasn’t overly effective – Saunders

(20-12-1) won all six rounds on two judges’ cards and five on the other – but it did force Saunders to fight Ntoh’s fight.

“He made me punch a lot more than I thought I was going to have to,” Saunders said. “I’m not a guy that goes backwards, but, as you could see, I had to do a lot of circling in the backwards direction.”

Ntoh got himself into trouble in the second half of the light heavyweight fight by mocking his opponent. Saunders quickly took advantage of the opportunities to land shots on Ntoh

(17-20).

“Any time that you drop your hands on me – as you can see, I’m a very quick fighter as well as a strong fighter,” Saunders said. “I heard he likes to do that, and I said ‘If he do that to me, he’s going to pay for it’ – and as you seen, he dropped his hands, and he paid for it.”

Venroy July improved to

5-0-1 with a unanimous decision victory over Deleon Tinsley (9-8) in a cruiserweight bout.

Tinsley wobbled July in the third round, but the Jamaican was in control for the most part in winning 60-54, 58-56,

60-54.

Damar Singleton left Robert Campbell a bloody mess after the four-round fight between a pair of undefeated light heavyweights. Singleton (3-0) relied on his counter punches early before opening up the offense and a cut over Campbell’s left eye. Singleton unleashed a straight right hand in the fourth that staggered Campbell (4-1), before a combo forced Campbell to a knee. Singleton won 60-54 on two cards and 59-55 on the other.

Pittsburgh’s Morgan Fitch made his pro debut in dominating fashion. He controlled his light heavyweight bout with Damion Reed (0-2) from the opening bell on the way to winning 40-34 on all three judges’ cards. Fitch scored two knockdowns in the fourth and final round, but couldn’t finish Reed.