Things are moving forward but nothing in Katie Taylor’s professional life seems too straightforward. As always she simplifies it all to suit her need for a harmonious, almost hermetic life, now largely in the US.
The quality sparring partners and her coach, Ross Enamait, means that it must be Vernon, Connecticut, north of Boston. A rented apartment in a town where they may not even recognise double American gold medal winner Clarissa Shields is quite a remove from Bray. The 30-year-old is liking it that way.
The isolation has become a friend. Vernon gives her focus and purpose and after just two professional fights, the basic building blocks of the trade are still being sequenced into her boxing DNA.
“I always enjoy my own company anyway even as an amateur,” she says. “I always liked to go into isolation before big competitions. I never really liked too many people around me so I think this sort of environment really suits my personality.”
The third professional fight of her second act was to have been against Milena Koleva on the undercard of the heavyweight grudge match between Tony Bellew and David Haye this Saturday in London.
Chest infection
But with Koleva suffering a chest infection last week, Italy’s Monica Gentili has stepped in at short notice. Taylor doesn’t know much about the Italian but she will meet her at 135 pounds, three pounds heavier than the 132lbs that won her Olympic gold in London a life time back.
“Thank God,” she sighs.
It is part of a year that is planned in the broadest strokes and can unfold only if everything goes to plan. She will have possibly more than seven fights in 2017 including this weekend's clash, her second in Manchester on March 25th, and another on the undercard of the heavyweight championship bout between Anthony Joshua and Wladimir Klitschko in Wembley on April 29th.
The Wembley bout, a 90,000 record crowd for British boxing, will be shown live in the US. Taylor also hopes for a bout in New York and in Ireland towards the end of the year. Her branding is global. That, at least, is how her management and backers Sky are shaping it.
“I’ve a few videos of her,” she says of Gentili. “She’s an experienced girl six losses [from 12 bouts] but she’s definitely going to come to fight. She was the best opponent we could get at short notice. The other girl pulled out last week so we were rushing to get an opponent.”
To less experienced fighters the surprise change at short notice might have given cause to become spooked. But Taylor sticks to her tried and trusted ideology of funnelling energy towards preparation not worry.
“I’m used to it from the amateur game,” she says. “I think this is quite normal. Early in a pro career you don’t know who you are boxing until late on. Obviously as the fights progress I’m going to know the opponents for months out. But this is quite normal really.
Expanding boxing universe
Taylor is part of an ever-expanding boxing universe.
Nicola Adams
, the British double gold medal winner and Shields are both professional. The traditional movers like
Showtime
and
HBO
are expressing more interest as names from Olympic games filter through to the professional ranks. If there’s a buck in it they will have the conversation.
"It's changing all the time," says promoter Brian Peters. "Celia Braekhus just fought at the weekend and she mentioned Katie."
Braekhus is a Norwegian professional boxer and former kickboxer. In boxing she is the undisputed female welterweight champion since 2014, and is the first woman in any weight class to hold the WBA, WBC, IBF, and WBO titles simultaneously.
Last weekend she made a successful defence for a 30-0 professional record.
“So it changes the landscape,” adds Peters. “Like Showtime when we were over [in New York] for the [James] Degale [Badou] Jack fight, we met up with Stephen Espinoza from Showtime and had dinner with him.
“We met up with Peter Nelson from HBO. So the landscape is changing and they’re very interested. You even see [Floyd] Mayweather signing up a lady . . . Doing a show in Ireland has to be a big show. Do you get away with one every year, one every nine, 10 months? It is all about entertainment and giving value for money.”
Learning curve
Taylor’s curve is steep. She is learning to plant her feet and hit harder, work the inside, avoid the following through elbows of her opponents and deal with their deliberate use of the head. The dark arts, or at least intimate knowledge of them, needs, for survival purposes, to be acquired.
It’s rough and tumble, a fight much more than the point-scoring exercises of the amateur competitions. Gentili’s shaven head, heavy tattoos and her 39 years suggests an experience beyond that of Taylor’s . But it might be her only advantage.
“I think definitely my in-close work has improved a lot,” says Taylor. “I feel I’ve been punching a lot harder over the last few months and I’m a lot stronger.”
This next cluster of bouts will tell just how much.
