In January, Dalton Smith won the WBC junior welterweight world title by knocking out the dangerous Subriel Matias in New York and a few weeks later, Josh Kelly beat the avoided Bakhram Murtazaliev to become the IBF junior middleweight champion.

They are the newest recruits to an exclusive club which also includes WBO heavyweight titleholder Fabio Wardley, WBA junior lightweight champion Jazza Dickens and IBF welterweight king Lewis Crocker.

The question now is whether any of those will be able to push on and unify their respective divisions.

At some point, everybody who has ever pulled on a pair of gloves has daydreamed about becoming a world champion. Only a tiny proportion have the skill and determination to achieve that dream and, of those, even fewer are born with the type of ability and self-belief to then push on and become the very best.

Josh Taylor knows exactly what it takes to reach the pinnacle of the sport.

The proud Scotsman barely took a breath during a phenomenal and underappreciated run which earned him the undisputed junior welterweight championship and The Ring title.

“It depends on who you are, what kind of mindset you're in and how you kind of see what potential you've got,” the now-retired Taylor told The Ring.

"You've got fighters that maybe go out there and say, 'If I can get an area title, good. If I get a British title, brilliant. If I get a world title, that's me conquered the world' so every fighter has got different ambitions.”

Taylor attacked his career from the very start and had already scored a number of impressive victories by the time he beat Ivan Baranchyk to win the IBF junior welterweight title in 2019.

Rather than treating the win as the culmination of a lifelong dream by immediately working out how to capitalise on it financially, Taylor used the night as a launchpad.

He bounced directly into a fight with WBA titlist Regis Prograis, and after beating the Louisianan to unify the division and win the World Boxing Super Series trophy, momentum carried him to Las Vegas.

There, he outpointed WBO and WBC champion Jose Carlos Ramirez to become Britain’s first-ever undisputed champion of the four-belt era. He accomplished the feat within the space of just 18 professional fights.

Taylor revealed that the desire to be the best wasn’t something he had to go searching for.

“I’d imagine, for most, becoming world champion is like the ultimate. For me, I expected that. I was calling myself a world champion when I was five years old, albeit not about boxing,” he said.

“For me, it was motorbike racing but I was always writing and manifesting that I was going to be a world champion, albeit it was a different sport.

“When I turned 13, 14 it was boxing and then I started getting good at it. In seven fights I was Scottish champion in the amateurs and then I went on to win multiple gold medals, become an Olympian and win Commonwealth gold so, I was like, “I'm going to be a world champion.”

“I'd drummed it into myself and I'm very much a believer in the law of attraction. I believed I had sort of talked myself and manifested my way into that becoming a reality. Every fighter is different in how they see themselves and what mindset they've got.”