For years, Nottingham light-heavyweight Ezra Taylor has been described as the full package but it was not until he linked up with Malik Scott that he genuinely considered himself that.

Taylor (13-0, 9 KOs) had not put a foot wrong over the course of his first 11 professional fights so it is not unfair to suggest that his decision to up sticks for Los Angeles to train with a new coach earlier this year came as a surprise to some.

And the new arrangement, under former fringe heavyweight contender and emerging coach Scott, could not have gotten off to a more inauspicious start after a 23-hour stint in a US detention centre. Taylor had headed south to watch Gerald Washington stop Carlos Eduardo Cardenas inside three rounds of their clash in Mazatlan, Mexico. However when he attempted to re-enter America, the 31-year-old was told he was being deported back to the UK.

“Don’t worry, we’re settled here now,” Taylor says from the front room of his temporary apartment in west Hollywood. “Yeah, I got deported last time around. That was two weeks before the Troy Jones fight, which is wild. It's not ideal being held in a detention centre for 23 hours and all that other stuff. It’s a bit bizarre when you're trying to train for a fight.”

The distraction, however, did not knock him off course as he marked his first fight under Scott by widely outpointing Jones, the only undefeated opponent on his record so far, over 10. Then, five months later, the new Transatlantic training team went two for two as Taylor stopped Steed Woodall in nine at London’s O2 Arena.

Now Taylor is back in LA to prepare for his next assignment and one he has no problem describing as ‘easily the toughest test’ of his career to date. On January 24, Taylor is slated to face The Ring’s No. 10-rated light-heavyweight Willy Hutchinson at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena and for the first time in his career he is an underdog with the bookmakers.

But, as far as he can see it, this will not be a fair fight.

“I go in the ring and it's normally a 1v1,” Taylor explains. “But it feels like a 2v1 now I’ve got Malik in my corner. That's the confidence I have going into the ring against anyone since we linked up. I'm so grateful to have Malik in my life. He's really the game changer overall.

“He’s a father figure, a mentor. He's on point. He's someone that I strive to be like because his traits and characteristics are great as a man. He's got good morals and ethics as well, principles. He's someone that I'm learning a lot of outside and inside the ring as well. We're both God-fearing as well, so we share that. Overall, it's not just a boxing relationship that we have. We have a strong relationship in general.”

Christmas was cancelled for Taylor, who eschewed the normal festive gathering back home in Nottingham in favour of his training camp, which did not miss a beat over the holidays.

“I’m in the trenches, mate,” he says with a smile. “No Christmas here.

“This has been a long and useful camp because every day I'm getting used to the climate and the changes because you have to adjust. America's completely different to the UK. The training style and the regime is brutal but you have to adjust to it. And yeah, you can see the results in my fights. I'm getting better and better each fight.

“I've just got an apartment out here that I'm chilling in. And then, yeah, I just get from A to B to train. So I train in North Hollywood, stay in West Hollywood and then I just crack on; I train two to three times a day.

“We're able to put in work and there's no schedule that we have to adhere to. It’s not like we've got a one-hour session, we'll work for two hours if we need to. If I need to get this left, right, down to a tee, we'll work on that for ages and ages until we get it down. So it's perfect. The dynamic's perfect.”

And what of Hutchinson, who is four years’ his junior but with far more experience as a professional? The talented switch-hitter lost narrowly to Joshua Buatsi in September 2024 but is now Hell-bent on working his way towards a world title shot.

“We've already got the game plan,” Taylor says. “We already know what we need to do. And it's nothing out of the realm of what I normally do anyway.

“And that's the thing I keep saying to people. I think we've probably seen the best Willy Hutchinson, but you haven't seen the best of me. That's something that people should sink their teeth into.

“We know what he’s about, he switches stances and he’s tricky. So you have to spar everyone, you spar southpaws, you spar orthodox, you spar switch-hitters. The sparring out here in LA is crazy. And like I said, it's character building. You see what makes or breaks you.

“That's a luxury of being out here because they have all types of styles out here that I've been dealing with. And Malik, I leave it all to him, man. He's a mastermind of what he does.

“I'm excited. It's not like I have to go and do backflips in the ring because I'm finding it hard and I have to do something completely different - I'm just going to go in there and be the best Ezra Taylor.”