Taylan Ali-Osman, 19, is a young aspiring athlete who has been deeply involved with football since the early ages of his life. However, more recently Taylan’s sporting sphere has expanded taking on his first amateur boxing fight. The real question is what will Taylan choose before when he comes to the inevitable crossroads?
Friday 26th of November Taylan featured in a boxing event at York Hall making his first amateur boxing appearance, when asked about this experience Taylan said ‘It is defiantly an experience I’ll never forget, and hopefully this is the first of many’.
Winning his fight in a whopping 39 seconds and breaking his opponents rib’s the rookie boxer was more than delighted with his performance, ‘Me and my team worked so hard for this and I think it was shown on the day’ is what Taylan had to say about his victory.
With twelve weeks of training camp before the event, Taylan’s team worked him harder than he even knew he could. He describes the training camp as ‘Light tap sparring, hardcore fitness, heavy sparing and cardio. It is a different level of training compared to football, they had me vomiting at stages.’
Taylan did not have a smooth ride on the way to this fight from injuries, to his opponent dropping out and balancing life as a whole. ‘I had a groin injury before the fight, it had me crying , they thought it was a hernia but luckily it was a little less extreme with it being cellulitis which was taken care of very well’.
Something that was mentally challenging for Taylan was his opponent changing less than 24 hours before the fight. ‘I arrived at my gym at 72kg and the day of the weigh in I came up at 62kg. hearing I was fighting someone heavier than me, it did make me feel high-strung at first, but at the end of the day my training was not going to be put to waste’.
‘The nerves did kick in while my hands where being wrapped, it took a while to get them done. I started shaking even though I wasn’t scared. I think my adrenaline took over after I stopped shaking it feels like a bit of a blur’.
When asked if Taylan was proud of himself he gave the honest opinion of ‘I’m a hardworking person and I know and this is the hardest I’ve worked for anything in my life I had to cut weight, take punches, exhaust myself, push myself to new levels. I defiantly can say I am proud of myself but I does not mean I am stopping here’.
In addition to Taylan’s early boxing achievement he is also a high standard footballer. From young age of 3 he has been in a football team. Moving on to more recent times he has played for the likes of Welling Town and Erith town.
‘Football is my passion and my love, my heart will never not be in football. I have dedicated 16 years of my life to football’ is what Taylan said about how much football means to him.
Following up from this Taylan said ‘I grew up watching football, playing football, practically living football it will always be a part of me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have love for boxing’.
When asked the near impossible question for Taylan to answer of what he has a bigger drive to succeed in, boxing or football, the response he gave was ‘its a question I hopefully won’t have to answer for a long time’.
‘My head is telling me boxing because I really do enjoy it, but my heart will always tell me to choose football . At the rate it is going I am probably let fate decide’.
‘If I had to really pick one it would be whichever one offered me some form of professional contract or job first. I have desire to pursue both sports but the most important thing to me is making my family proud’, is how he ended the debate between the choice he would have to make in time.
Diving deeper into how Taylan wants to make his family proud he was asked about people Taylan looks up to he answered with no hesitation ‘My dad. He’s my inspiration and my idol in and outside of the sporting word. He took me to every training session when I was younger, he taught me all he knows about football, he has supported me every step of the way. To make him proud would mean the world to me’.
Brining an end to Taylan’s story I am sure no matter what path Taylan ends up following, I believe it will be a name that will be around for years and hopefully a successful one at that.