Katie Taylor ready to make more history - but one glaring omission on the CV

Katie Taylor: Ready for more history

When Katie Taylor looks back on her career one day, it will be the big nights probably more than the large collection of medals and belts that will count the most.

Nothing is likely to match that day at the ExCeL in London’s Docklands in the summer of 2012 when she won her Olympic gold medal, but topping the bill at Madison Square Garden against Amanda Serrano on April 30 will run that pretty close.

Serrano, a Puerto Rican who grew up in Brooklyn, is one of two women who could have given Taylor the megafight that her career has so far lacked, the other being Claressa Shields, the two-time Olympic middleweight gold medallist turned multiple world champion.

Serrano has won a mass of world title belts between super-flyweight and super-lightweight and while her dramatic switches between the divisions says much for some clever matchmaking and the paucity of quality opposition, there is no doubting her ability.

Taylor has craved a meeting with either, the chance to test her skills against the best. But Shields shied away from a move down to welterweight where that bout could have been made. The usual boxing roadblocks of purse splits and home advantage has previously stopped Taylor and Serrano getting it on.

Women’s boxing is still having growth spurts and the sad fact is that there are far more world-title belts around than truly world-class boxers. It is a fact borne out by the announcement — somewhat overshadowed by Taylor-Serrano — that Natasha Jonas, who gave Taylor a tough fight eight months ago, will be jumping up three weight divisions to box for a world title next month. She will be favourite to win, too.

At 35, Taylor does not have time to waste. Until now, her biggest fights have probably been against the Belgian Delfine Persoon, whom she first beat — controversially — to unify the world lightweight title in a tight encounter also at the famous New York venue, although notably on the undercard of Anthony Joshua’s upset loss to Andy Ruiz Jr. This time, men will be the supporting act to her.

Two years ago, this fight was close to being made, but a deal proved elusive, and talks collapsed among some angry finger-pointing from both sides. Serrano has even dabbled in mixed-martial arts, having complained about the lack of money available for top-class female boxers.

The purse for both will overshadow anything either has earned before, but what likely matters more to both is to show themselves as the best in the sport. Whatever the result, Shields, who likes to say she is the best of all time, is likely to be grinding her teeth.

Stylewise, the pair are very different. Taylor is a classically schooled boxer, working off the jab, happy outboxing and outworking her opponents. Serrano is looser, more aggressive and has a reputation as something of a knockout artist.

Since turned professional in 2016, Taylor has won all her 20 fights but has stopped only six opponents. Serrano, 33, has been a professional seven-and-a-half years longer, and has stopped 30 of her 44 opponents. Her only loss came in Sweden in 2012, when she lost on points in her first world title challenge.

Despite having had more than double the number of professional bouts that Taylor has had, she has only boxed 18 more rounds — 182-164 — testament to her ability to finish things early. Indeed, 15 of her opponents never made it past the first round. It is to Taylor’s immense credit that she has pushed for this fight, rather than settling for a series of routine defences of her world crown.

But that is fitting for someone who is still obsessed with her sport. Back home in Ireland after each fight, it seldom takes her long to get itchy feet and want to go back to her training base in Connecticut.

“All she ever talks about is boxing, all she ever seems to think about is boxing,” Eddie Hearn, her promoter, said. “She is incredibly dedicated to her sport.”

Building the Taylor brand has not always been easy for Hearn as Taylor does not naturally enjoy the limelight or interviews and has turned down several sponsorship deals that she felt were too much of an imposition on her time.

“She doesn’t like doing anything that gets in the way of her training,” Hearn said. “She probably could have been an even bigger star, but she has done it her way.” It needed a touch of the surreal to force the deal through, though, with Hearn crediting Jake Paul, the YouTuber turned boxer, for getting the Puerto Rican to agree. Paul, who had built a lucrative career by knocking out non-boxers, will be the co-promoter of the fight, The deal was essentially in place in December, when Taylor last boxed, outpointing Kazakhstan’s Firuza Sharipova in Liverpool. She could barely contain her excitement as she declared Taylor-Serrano “an absolutely historic fight, more than a dream”.

The boxers will get the big fight treatment too, with a New York press conference next week, followed by one in London the week after. They might not quite be in the private jet league yet, but they will probably be turning left rather than right when they get on the plane.

This will comfortably be the biggest women’s professional bout in history. The previous holder of that distinction was probably Laila Ali’s 2001 fight with Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, a bout from a different era when promoters found it impossible to sell the idea of two women boxing without a gimmick. Of course, when those two boxers’ famous fathers met in the first of their three encounters, it was also at Madison Square Garden — then only three years old — and they called it the Fight of the Century.

That was a different century. No one could have imagined back then that people would roll up in the thousands to watch women box.

Beat Serrano and there will only be one glaring omission on Taylor’s record — a homecoming fight in Ireland.

That is an ambition for another day.