For the first time as a professional boxer, Katie Taylor will step out of the bowels of the 3 Arena on Saturday night in Dublin. Then maybe it all hits her — the enormity of what she’s done for boxing in Ireland and women’s boxing as a whole.
Knowing Taylor, it probably won’t show on her face, but there will probably be a glimmer. Since turning pro, Taylor has wanted to return to Ireland to fight and allow fans in his hometown, where he is a huge star, to see him compete as champion. But for years it seemed impossible.
At the age of 15, Taylor fought in the first sanctioned women’s amateur bout in Ireland. Now, at age 36, after hundreds of amateur fights and 22 professional ones, he will return to the biggest professional fight the country has ever seen. Taylor, the undisputed lightweight champion, will face Chantel Cameron for Cameron’s undisputed junior welterweight championship in one of the biggest fights of the year.
“It’s something I’ve wanted for a long time,” Taylor said. “I’ve been expressing my desire for years to actually fight [at] Home in Ireland. And since all the fights took place in the UK or the US, I guess I was discouraged along the way thinking it wouldn’t happen.
“But now that we’re here, we’re getting ready for a big, big fight and I’m very grateful.”
Taylor had been craving this moment since 2016, when she turned pro after the Olympics and left Ireland to train and, eventually, live full-time in the United States. America became his temporary home — he bought a place in rural Connecticut — but returning to Ireland to fight was an unremarkable constant, with occasional mentions to Matchroom promoter Eddie Hearn over the years.
There are roadblocks and concerns. In 2016, shots were fired during a weigh-in before a scheduled WBO European title fight Dublin, killed one That led to the cancellation of the fight and changed the timing of boxing shows in the country. Although not the same level of influence and not something that would prevent Taylor from fighting in his home country in 2018, A fatal shooting at Bray Boxing Club, where Taylor’s father, Peter, was a coach, made national headlines. Taylor’s father was injured in the shooting.
None of those things had anything to do with Katie directly, and she declined to discuss either incident when asked by ESPN, but this is the first major fight in the country since then. It was slow, but the momentum picked up for Taylor to finally fight in Ireland.
After Taylor beat Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden last year, several members of Serrano’s team said they would enjoy a rematch in Ireland — Serrano’s previous primary opponent. Withdrawal due to hand injury.
They tried to secure Croke Park for Taylor-Serrano 2 – the Irish MMA star Conor McGregor even offered to help with the costs — and the conversation reached the highest levels of government in February. The fight was eventually booked into the Small 3 Arena.
“It felt a little surreal to be honest with you,” said Taylor’s mother, Bridget. “And I think my stomach did a few flips and I thought, ‘OK, this is happening.'”
Cameron stepped up to ensure Taylor got the kind of fight he wanted. A fight his Irish countrymen desperately wanted to see — the cheapest tickets on the secondary market were more than $550 and some as high as $1,700, according to Ticketmaster.
“He didn’t seem interested in fighting for the sake of fighting. You know what I mean,” Taylor’s brother Peter said. “The fight had to represent progress to him, and that’s just his personality.
“I think he’s always just looking for improvement, so I think he was worried for a few days. He knew he wanted someone really good. He wanted a big name.”
Cameron understood the environment he was entering. He realized that he would be giving away his title — not Taylor’s. But Cameron also sees that Taylor is the one with all the pressure, even though Cameron is the champion because it’s Taylor’s homecoming. It’s an eventful year made for him.
That’s fine with Cameron. As well as acknowledging Taylor’s importance to sport and boxing in Ireland, he can also play spoiler as champion.
“If it wasn’t for Katie, I wouldn’t be in this position because of what she’s done for women’s boxing,” Cameron said. “He was incredible and he should have had his homecoming fight a long time ago, because he deserves it.”
With Cameron stepping in and saving the fight, Taylor can once again continue his sole focus: training. Everything was the same until now, even if it wasn’t the venue. He still trains in Connecticut. His manager, Brian Peters, handled the ticket requests that came in and Thomas Rohan facilitated his media requests. In Dublin, he’s doing his best to act like he’s fighting in the US or England instead of kilometers from where he grew up.
During the week of the fight her team and her mother had already worked to shut Taylor off from family and friends who wanted to fight for her attention. Time will come with them, when he is in Bray.
This is the first world title fight in the country since 2011, when Guillermo Rigondeaux knocked out Willie Casey in the first round to win the WBA interim junior featherweight title. The last time an Irish fighter won a world title fight in which country? Bernard Dunn knocked out Ricardo Cordoba at 3 Arena, then called the O2.
One of the undercard fights? Taylor beat Carey Barry 27-3 in a lightweight amateur bout. Will that memory slip for Taylor on Saturday night? Probably not. But it blends his past with his present and in some ways fits his whole thought process: his career is as much about the “next generation of fighters” as it is about himself.
This fight means everything to him — but his approach to all fights before this one is the same. the train fight victory What next?
“It’s absolutely huge for me,” Taylor said. “That’s what I really wanted.
“We are bringing big time boxing back to Ireland for the first time in a long time.”
ESPN UK boxing reporter Nick Parkinson contributed to this story.
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