It has never been any different with Katie Taylor. Respect is her North Star, that and little fear of next week’s would-be iconoclast, Chantelle Cameron. Taylor has never been a boxer to sweat the challenge of a new opponent.
She’s a pressure giver not a pressure taker. A homecoming in Dublin’s 3Arena against the British welterweight and her next career-defining bout of going up in weight to meet a bigger world champion has become another day in the life.
Still in her US home in Connecticut, Taylor will make her way to Dublin at the weekend for a week of controlled mayhem. There is a different kind of pressure this time for her first professional fight in Ireland.
It comes with the shock and awe nature of her career as a female boxer. First to win an Olympic gold medal, first to win a professional title, first to headline Madison Square Garden, first now to fill the 3Arena and fulfill a long-held ambition.
“I wouldn’t say I fear anything about her,” says Taylor. “But I’m obviously aware of the challenge ahead. She has a big engine and I’m prepared for that. She’s big and strong, I’m prepared for that as well.
“But I also have a big engine. I’m also strong, so I wouldn’t say I fear anything. But I am aware. I’m going in there ready for, I feel like anything that comes my way on fight night.
“I’m not really feeling the extra pressure, or I don’t feel like this fight is a burden to me pressure-wise. I’m just excited to step in there and to fight. This is an incredible opportunity to fight at home.”
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Taylor will not surround herself with the comforts of her hometown in Bray. Although she has moved a short distance from the area in which she grew up, her house remains not far from the main street.
To go home and set up in a town where the entire 35,000 population knows exactly who she is would be inviting distraction. Even in London for the 2012 Olympics, Taylor had to avoid the churn of her growing celebrity.
“We’re going to be based in Dublin for fight week,” she says. “I think everybody knows where I live in Bray [laughs], so I think it’d be more chaotic and hectic. We have somewhere in Dublin that I’m staying in for fight week. Just looking forward to it.”
As ever she has also to deal with many different things. Michael Conlan, who has a world title fight the following week and who was part of the Irish boxing team in 2012, where he won an Olympic bronze medal, knows Taylor as well as anyone.
Conlan made two assertions, the first that Cameron in Dublin will be a tougher contest than Amanda Serrano in New York and the second that Taylor is the closest thing to a saint that he has seen. Now, that is pressure.
“Well, I don’t know if I’m the closest thing to a saint,” she says suspicious of Conlan’s mischief. “But I do believe this fight has the potential to be the hardest of my career.
“These are the kind of fights that I am very, very excited about. But I can’t say that I’m a saint!”
She has always sparred against men. Conlan and Paddy Barnes in the amateur days would come to Dublin for workouts and they are part of the reason Taylor is not only a speedy technician but also incredibly durable.
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Against Serrano she found out how good her chin and recovery were in the fifth round. Cameron, who is naturally bigger, has the weapons to retest those areas. Still, Serrano explored those dark corners, where few other boxers have been, and Taylor came through.
“Yeah, you are reassured about the heart that you have. You definitely learn something from every single fight,” says Taylor, who went into a previous bout with a torn calf muscle.
“In those particular fights you do learn what the body is capable of and that you can come through so much adversity. I was stepping in there not 100 per cent. But I was still winning world titles and that can only increase your confidence.
“You know you’re not at your very, very best but you’re still winning these fights and that’s a great attribute to have.”
Seven years ago Taylor fought in Mallow and Tralee. Prior to that, she fought in the Bord Gáis Theatre and in Bray she boxed in a community centre and in a hotel, where people threw money into a USA Biscuit tin on a table at the door and kids sat around the low ring with their crisps resting on the canvas. Things have changed. But memories stay.
“They were huge nights for me, and it is always such a treat, fighting in front of your home crowd,” she says. “Every single time I fought at home, even as an amateur in those small-town shows, the support was incredible and the atmosphere.
“This is obviously a bigger scale. But even those fights were so special. I can’t believe it has been so long since I fought at home. This is going to be such a special night on the 20th, but those nights are always, always very, very special.”
After 22 professional wins, everything changes and nothing does.
