As Katie Taylor walked out of the arena after her first win of this week she was asked if she knew anything about the next opponent, a Romanian boxer, Lavina Ioana Mera. "No," she said. "I don't even know who I'm fighting."
Actually no one did because the preliminary bout to decide who would face her was taking place just behind where she was standing. Had Taylor known the name of her opponent, she would still not have recognised the blond-haired Romanian as one of the juniors who looked up to her as a young boxer growing up in Ireland.
Mera lived in Mitchelstown in Cork for most of her primary school years before retuning to Romania at the end of first year, when she was almost 14 years old.
For nearly six years she boxed locally, looking admiringly north towards Dublin to the Bray base from where Taylor was conquering the world. Now 19, Mera, the local hope in Bucharest, has to plot the downfall of the Olympic, world and reigning European champion.
Taylor is about to face a Romanian Cork county junior boxing champion, who has a brother that lives in Dún Laoghaire. “I feel honoured to box with her,” says Mera. “Since I’ve been in the 60kgs I’ve had this wish to box with her. But I wasn’t expecting it so soon. I feel pretty prepared for her but I don’t want to say anything for now. I know I’ll give my best and box as good as I can.
“In my eyes she is a great champion and she’s a brilliant girl as well as a character and outside the ring a girl I really admire. It will be a big pleasure for me to box against her because I see the way she boxes and I appreciate her for what she is.”
Junior ranks
Mera, who is in just her first year out of the junior ranks, lived for six years in Michelstown, where her father worked and her mother raised the children. Now back living in Romania, her meeting with Taylor is the biggest test of her career, one where the emotions are mixed.
“Actually, I started boxing in Ireland,” she says. “I’m a county champion in the juniors. I was in Mitchelstown in Cork, where my parents lived. My father worked as a butcher and my mother looked after the children. My brother is a citizen of Ireland. He got residency and lives in Dublin, Dún Laoghaire. We have quite a past in Ireland alright. When I was boxing there everyone was telling me you should get up to box like Katie to be like her.”
The transition from juniors to seniors takes time and the hesitancy in her voice comes from this match-up possibly being premature. Taylor’s speed and power can be overwhelming and while the Olympic champion knew little about Mera, she’s far from complacent about tomorrow’s meeting, one that will ensure the winner receives at least a European bronze medal.
“The truth is she is the best,” says Mera. “That’s definite and you can see it clearly from a distance. I cannot say that I am better than her. No. Right now she is the best. But we’ll see. I’ll box with her. I’ll give it my best and we’ll see afterwards if she is still the best or not. Right now, though, she’s the best.”
If Taylor wins it could set up a meeting Bulgaria’s Denitsa Eliseeva, the last boxer to get a decision over Taylor.
There has been a distinction made between ‘beating’ Taylor and getting a ‘decision’. Eliseeva was gifted a controversial points win by the judges when she beat Taylor 5-1 on home ground at the Strandja Multi-Nations in February 2011, a shock result for which she later apologised to Taylor’s furious camp.
But the Irish champion is not one to look too far ahead in the draw. There’s still a Cork county champion to be boxed in the Tineretului Park, where the venue Polyvalent Hall is located. “I have been back in Romania for a few years now,” says Mera. “It was great in Cork. I liked Ireland. It was a great pleasure but your country is your country and home is here for me.”
