Ezra Taylor’s hard fought victory over Troy Jones on Saturday night looks to have secured the Nottingham man a shot at British and Commonwealth light heavyweight champion, Lewis Edmondson.

Known as ‘The Cannon’ due to his powerful right hand, Taylor (12-0, 8 KOs) was forced to go the ten round distance but rather than highlighting any limitations, the entertaining fight gave the 30 year-old the opportunity to showcase some previously unseen parts of his game.

Former English champion, Jones (12-1, 6 KOs), fought with the determination and ambition of an unbeaten fighter but Taylor more than matched him during some gruelling exchanges and he finished the fight strongly, stinging Jones more and more frequently as the fight wore on.

Jones can be surprisingly unorthodox and clever but Taylor managed to make the 26 year-old look one dimensional at times and rather than doing everything in his power to avoid a close quarters fight, there were long spells where he managed to beat Jones at his own game.

Taylor ticked plenty of boxes in his first fight under the guidance of his new trainer, Malik Scott, and whilst the wide scorecards (100-90, 99-91 and 97-94) failed to do Jones’ game effort justice, they also disguise just how hard Taylor had to work for the win.

After the fight, Taylor provided a much more honest summary of the fight than the three ringside judges managed.

“That was a hard fight, I had to dig deep,” he told Queensberry on his way back to the dressing room.

“I'll be honest, I ain’t that happy with that performance. We worked on so much more and I did glimpses of it. There’s a lot more to go and a lot more to come. I need improvement.”

“That was a professional performance. It was getting hard in there. Troy ain't no pushover.

“I had to be patient and calm in the storm and I did it so on to the next one.”

Taylor may not have long to enjoy his hard fought victory.

Throughout fight week, his long time rival, Edmondson (11-0, 3 KOs), was a constant, noticeable presence. Taylor and Jones both elected to throw shots at him rather than each other during Thursday’s press conference and he was at ringside on Saturday night to get a look at the men competing for a shot at his titles.

Taylor appeared to come through the fight relatively unscathed and whispers that the grudge match with Edmondson will land on the undercard of the undisputed heavyweight title rematch between WBC,WBA, WBO and Ring Magazine champion, Oleksandr Usyk, and IBF title holder, Daniel Dubois, at Wembley Stadium on July 19th now seem certain to become louder.

Edmondson did his part to get in some early pre-fight promotion by gatecrashing Taylor’s post fight interview and Taylor laid out his plans before engaging the champion in an intense staredown.

“I’m taking you out,” Taylor told Edmondson. “Troy would smoke you as well.

“I hope the fight happens next. Frank and George [Warren], thank you for the opportunity tonight and let me whack this guy up.

“I’m gonna hurt you, boy.”