When Josh Taylor defeated José Ramírez in Las Vegas in 2021 to claim the WBC and WBO light welterweight belts to add to the IBF and WBA belts he already held, he became only the fifth fighter in boxing’s four belt era to become unified champion of the world. At that point, Taylor was widely considered to be not only one of the boxing greats of his generation but of all-time given how few boxers had become four-belt unified champions.

Taylor’s success continued a fine tradition of Scottish boxing success, with the Edinburgh man the latest in a line of Scottish world champions.

Pre-war, there was the likes of Benny Lynch while it was post-WW2 that Scotland really become a boxing super power.

Ken Buchanan and Jim Watt in the 1970s were giants of the sport and put Scotland on the boxing map.

Into the 1990s and 2000s, there was a steady stream of Scottish boxing world champions.

Paul Weir, Pat Clinton, Scott Harrison, Alex Arthur and Ricky Burns before Taylor’s first world title in 2019 and, on the women's side, Hannah Rankin in 2021, ensured Scotland never had to wait too long for a new world champion to emerge.

Alex Arthur is a former world champion (Image: Getty Images)

Since the retirement of Taylor last year, though, Scottish boxing has hit something of a brick wall.

Not only has no Scottish fighter fought for a world title since Taylor’s last world title challenge in 2023 (when he lost to Teofimo Lopez in New York), few have even come close to challenging for one of the sport’s biggest prizes.

The dearth of fighters at the very top of the sport is changed days from the hey day when Scottish fighters were some of the very best on the planet.

Despite Buchanan and Watt having won their world titles five decades ago, their names remain recognisable both within, and outwith, the sport. And in the era of Harrison, Arthur and and Burns, it became a regularity that Scots were challenging for, and winning, world titles.

It’s Taylor who took Scottish boxing up another level, though. By joining the rarified group of unified world champions, Taylor ensured Scottish boxing remained held in the highest regard.

But since Taylor hung up his gloves last year as a result of a recurring eye injury, the standing of Scottish boxing has gone downhill faster than even the most pessimistic could have foreseen.

There’s been several Scots touted to reach the top, but never quite made it, with Taylor’s former training partner, Lee McGregor, perhaps the most talked-up as a prospect.

Having become British, Commonwealth and European champion by 2021 and within just ten fights as a professional, McGregor seemed a sure bet to progress to becoming world champion. But boxing is a fickle sport, and although McGregor did secure a world title fight in 2023, as it’s turned out, defeat in that bout signalled the start of a steady decline for him. Two defeats in his last three fights has killed McGregor’s career progression stone dead and although he’s not hung up his gloves - he will fight again later this month - it’s hard to see a viable route back to the top for the 29-year-old.

In the past year, no Scot has come particularly close to fighting for a world title. The closest has been Nathaniel Collins, who took on Cristobal Lorente in a WBC world title eliminator earlier this year. Collins was widely expected to win and therefore move onto a world title fight. But, surprisingly to most, he lost by split decision and as is the way in boxing, this one defeat has moved him quite some distance from ever challenging for a world title again.

In the immediate aftermath of Collins’ defeat, a world title challenger from these shores seemed something of a dim and distant prospect.

There is, however, a glimmer of hope.

Next weekend, Willy Hutchinson will fight Joshua Buatsi for the vacant WBC World Light Heavyweight title. It’s a rematch of their bout from two years ago, which was for the WBO World Light heavyweight title and which Hutchinson lost but aged 28, the Scot is a considerably more rounded fighter than he was in 2024.

Willy Hutchinson (r) will fight for his first world title next weekend (Image: Getty Images)

Hutchinson, however, remains strangely, and unfairly, under-the-radar in his home country. With a 20-2 win-loss record as a professional, and having been world amateur champion of the world, his pedigree is imperious. Yet outwith boxing circles, Hutchinson is disproportionately low-profile.

A win next weekend would be monumental both for Hutchinson himself, but, also for Scottish boxing given he’s currently the only fighter who is anywhere one of the sport’s major belts.

There is some cause for optimism looking forward, however.

There’s a group of former top-class amateurs who not only are dreaming of world title fights, but have shown the potential to fulfil their goals. Reese Lynch and Sam Hickey both won Commonwealth Games gold in 2022 and both remain unbeaten as professionals. Both have shown glimpses that they can, in the future, challenge for a world title.

And then there’s the Arthur brothers, Alex and Machlan, who are the sons of the aforementioned former world champion, Alex Arthur. It’s the younger of the pair, Machlan, in particular, who has been earmarked as a future world champion. Machlan cannot remember a time when he wasn’t desperate to become a world champion boxer and while any fighter needs more than merely aspirations to reach the top, by all accounts the youngest Arthur has all the attributes needed to challenge for a world title further down the line.

And there's 18-year-old Aaron Sarwar who, this week, was crowned world youth champion after winning the flyweight final in Montenegro.

(Image: Gordon Terris /Herald & Times)

There is, though, some distance between wanting to fight for a world title, and actually doing it. And then there’s taking the next step, which is actually winning the thing. That so many Scots have tried and failed to climb to the top of the mountain in boxing, many of whom were supremely talented individuals, illustrates just how difficult a task it is become a boxing world champion.

But despite the scale of the task in hand, Scotland needs to return to the point of having world class fighters. A return to the top of the sport will, hopefully, begin next weekend with Hutchinson. And then the fighters who come behind him must do what’s needed to also reach world title fights.

Scotland has too proud a boxing tradition to have its best fighters be merely journeymen for too much longer.