After midnight now in Dallas Cowboys arena with its photos of local gods past – Jerry Jones and Jimmy Johnson and Troy Aikman on the wall – when Katie Taylor comes in bearing two bruised eyes and a swollen cheek and a sweet smile of quiet satisfaction. Outside, the big arena is deserted except for the small army of cleaning staff. The Cowboys are back here Monday night.
Maybe you had to be there but it felt as if this was Taylor’s apotheosis: her true-grit night of nights in an alien and hostile environment. Still the champ. And 38 years old now. More questions. Will she fight again? And if so, who? And where? Because magnificent as this fight was against Amanda Serrano, it happened while Ireland slept.
The depth of what she achieved here may not have fully registered as a genuinely great moment for Irish sport. And it carried a bitter afternote. Taylor’s reputation was besmirched here. It happened in the immediate aftermath when Jordan Maldonado lost his composure and flung a few choice insults around the arena already convinced that Taylor had intentionally headbutted Serrano in the fourth to open up a deep gash which bled throughout despite the efforts of her cut man. “She’s so dirty. She leads with her head. It’s her best attribute,” he said in a live interview during the fight.
Given that Taylor was, during the roiling, crazy final rounds when both fighters just stood and traded blows and ignored the pain, showcasing her lightning and superior hand work, it was a nasty thing to say. Afterwards, promoter Nikisa Bidarian doubled down when he appeared alongside Jake Paul.
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“I would like to point out that the betting markets in the 10th round had it at -350 for Amanda to win,” he said, out of the blue.
“I thought in the first round if there was 15 seconds left Katie Taylor was dropped and done. I thought she implemented her game plan well but it was a dirty fight. She used her head to lead every single minute of every round and Amanda did her best to fight back but she was at a disadvantage and the ref didn’t stop the headbutts. He took a point away way too late and she continued to do the headbutting and the holding. She felt the ref didn’t protect her and they should have taken away more than one point for what that woman did in the ring tonight.”
Bidarian was excited: the night had been a thundering commercial success. But he should have had the clarity to understand that Taylor-Serrano had rescued it from farce. And as he said himself, he is four years involved in boxing. Taylor has been dedicated to the sport for her entire life. Bidarian hasn’t earned the right to offer that sort of criticism. When Taylor was asked about it, she returned to her post-match habit of floating above the noise.
“It just happens sometimes when you fight a southpaw especially. The fighters come in close and it just happens. It was completely accidental. I am in there fighting like she is and it is a rough sport and sometimes you get head clashes. I think it was a very different fight than the first time. I started off a bit slow and changed it up in the second half where I just stood and fought with her but I definitely think I did bring my punches to land. And that is what won the fight in the end, I feel. But another really close fight, two epic fights and close decisions and I am just proud.”
But weirdly, it fell to a quintessential Englishman, promoter Eddie Hearn, to defend Taylor in the aftermath of it all. Hearn belongs to the rich school of East London fast talkers but when he reflected on Taylor last night, he meant it. You could hear it in his voice. During the fight, he had, like many fight enthusiasts, lost himself in the depth and quality of the courage with which Taylor had boxed.
“For me she is the greatest female fighter of all time. She is the one who when boxing was banned in Ireland, and girls weren’t allowed to fight she put her ponytail under her headguard and walked in pretending she was a boy. She was K Taylor in the amateurs. She was the one who convinced the IOC to allow boxing for females, the one who won five World Championship amateur titles, six European amateur titles, Olympic gold, undisputed lightweight world champion, undisputed super lightweight world champion. Sold out Madison Square Garden. Sold out the arenas in Ireland. Wembley in front of 90,000.
“For me – I’m biased. And she is so humble. But it goes beyond the achievements. It is down to the legacy. I see it with my own daughters. For me, it is no competition.”
