EDDIE HEARN HAS confirmed that Sky Sports are interested in staging a Katie Taylor-headlined Box Office event, with a rematch against Delfine Persoon the most likely candidate for what would be a first-ever women’s pay-per-view fight to air on a major network on either side of the Atlantic.
The42 has previously reported that a re-run of June’s Madison Square Garden classic between the Irish icon and the Belgian powerhouse had been earmarked as a Sky Box Office main event, and promoter Hearn — whose Matchroom Boxing outfit has a long-running television deal with Sky — admitted that the British broadcasting giant is keen for Taylor to take top billing in what would be a watershed moment for female professional boxing.
Taylor must first pass the test presented to her by WBO World light-welterweight champion Christina Linardatou in her bid to become a two-weight world champion when she headlines at the Manchester Arena live on regular Sky Sports this Saturday, and Hearn also stressed that negotiations with Persoon’s camp could yet prove fruitless even if Taylor does maintain her unbeaten record in what will be her 15th professional contest.
Taylor and Persoon would likely each receive a portion of the pay-per-view sales on top of their agreed purses, but the Belgian side of the equation will likely drive a hard bargain given a prospective sequel would now be considered a significant bout in boxing generally, not to mention one of the most eagerly anticipated in the history of the women’s paid ranks.
Hearn also suggested that one of either Taylor’s nemesis Amanda Serrano or undisputed welterweight champion Cecilia Braekhus could potentially fit the bill as a dance partner in the search for a Taylor Box Office bout, but explained why a Persoon rematch would make the most sense if the proposal was green-lit.
“I think there is an interest from Sky to try and break ground with a pay-per-view fight — the first-ever women’s pay-per-view fight,” Hearn said. “And I think there are only three fights you can do that with, and that’s Serrano, Braekhus and Persoon.
“Although Serrano and Braekhus are big names in the boxing world, Persoon does have that crossover [appeal] because she boxed Katie Taylor and that fight went everywhere, and it was a little bit controversial — people had their opinions on it.
So that [rematch] is a fight that, for me, may be pay-per-view. I’m not saying it’s going to do hundreds of thousands of buys, but I think there’s an appetite from Sky to really push women’s sport in a way to give it that equal billing if you like. And that would be a fight, with a big undercard, that could be a pay-per-view event.
“We couldn’t make the Persoon happen now because the money weren’t there,” Hearn added matter-of-factly.
I mean, Katie wants to be paid well, Persoon is going to want to make a lot of money – may even price herself out of that fight. We’re presuming we can even reach a deal and we haven’t got to that stage yet.
“There’s a lot of people who want to see her fight Persoon. It was a very close fight and I think she’s the kind of person who won’t want any doubts. Even when people say, ‘Persoon won’, she is not happy about it. It was a close fight. I had it a draw. It’s what you like.”
The Matchroom chief also confirmed that a Sky Sports Box Office event could only realistically take place in this neck of the woods for timezone reasons, throwing the prospect of a long sought-after homecoming bout in Ireland into the mix alongside the far more likely reality of a UK landing spot.
Ireland remains a black spot for big-time boxing essentially for security reasons, gangland criminality’s intersection with the sport not having yet subsided to the point that an event of such magnitude could be expected to go off without a hitch, or at least without costing an extra fortune.
Saturday’s fight location of Manchester is just a half an hour’s flight away from Dublin, and would likely be a frontrunner to host Taylor-Persoon II provided Taylor can emerge victorious from Taylor-Linardatou I.
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