TEXAS USED TO be where Irish boxing dreams went to die.
John Duddy’s career ended at the Alamodome, San Antonio, in 2010, when Julio Cesar Chavez Jr proved him sufficiently beneath world level. Two years later, Andy Lee’s first world-title tilt was halted by the same Mexican opponent at El Paso’s Sun Bowl, when an oversized Chavez ground him down in a bout now infamous for its lack of proper drug-testing procedure. More recently, Spike O’Sullivan won plenty of admiration but lost his last realistic shot at a world title when he was felled by another Mexican, Jamie Munguia, in the Lone Star State.
Those results at least tallied with the fights we watched through our fingers at the time. Within boxing, though, Texas is more broadly considered the tainted canvas on which the away boxer is most likely to get absolutely jobbed, irrespective of the judges’ backgrounds.
As New Yorker Paulie Malignaggi put it following his highly contentious defeat to local boy Juan Diaz in Houston in 2009: “This state never gives a fair shake to anyone coming to fight hometown fighters. It never happens.” Grabbing the mic from his HBO interviewer, Max Kellerman, Malignaggi then invoked ‘The Fight’ between Pernell Whitaker and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr: an era-defining showdown held in San Antonio in 1993 in which Whitaker soundly outboxed the Mexican all-time great (whose aforementioned son would go on to beat both Duddy and Lee) only for the judges to manufacture a draw.
Boxing, Malignaggi would declare 16 years later, was still “full of shit”, and particularly so in Texas.
That’s why it was almost jarring to hear the words “and still” in November 2024 as Katie Taylor’s exhausted arm was raised in triumph over Amanda Serrano, the promotional A-side and home-country fighter who, let’s face it, was ‘supposed to’ win to satisfy the industry demand for a trilogy bout.
That boxing was so void of shit on that night in Dallas felt genuinely anomalous.
“Like, honestly, with Texas, I was a little worried about the judges,” says Taylor’s trainer, Ross Enamait. “And on an MVP card, too (Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions steer Serrano’s career).
“I had no idea what to expect. I knew the fight was very close. So, I’m sitting there like, ‘Geez…’ You know? Like, who knows what the judges are looking at, right? You never know.”
An exhausted Katie Taylor, and a less tired Brian Peters, celebrate her rematch win over Amanda Serrano. Ed Mulholland / INPHO
Ed Mulholland / INPHO / INPHO
It was a rare occasion on which the home side were left to shriek robbery as the visiting boxer pulled off the most gratifying smash-and-grab.
The beauty of it from an Irish perspective was that there was no reason to feel guilty about the decision awarded to Taylor. It was just a great victory, likely the best of her 20-plus-year career given the circumstances. Most real boxing people sided overwhelmingly with the Irishwoman: Americans Terence Crawford, Shakur Stevenson, Claressa Shields, Caleb Plant, Teddy Atlas and Christy Martin were among those who believed Taylor deserving of her fractional win over their compatriot or, in Shields’ case, friend.
But boxing is a minority sport and, for a few hours at least, it appeared on social media as though the majority of viewers had been swept up in the hurricane of emotion conjured by the American commentary team, one of whom went as far as to say the victory would be accompanied on Taylor’s CV by an asterisk.
Rosie Perez has since apologised for this remark and rowed back on her criticism of the judges’ decision. But she wasn’t alone in taking creative licence while cheerleading for Serrano.
“If you actually listen to the fight on Netflix,” says trainer Enamait, still incredulous, “like, Round 3: we box really well, we actually won it on all three of the judges’ scorecards in reality, right? And I remember telling Katie at the time, ‘That pace suits us all day. Keep boxing like that. That’s what we want.’
“And then watching the fight back, Mauro Ranallo (lead commentator) says at the start of Round 4: ‘Concern in the undisputed champion’s corner…’
Enamait laughs. “It’s like… ‘Did you just watch the last round? We just won the round clear.’ All three judges gave it to us but the commentary at the time paints a picture of concern and when you do that, it sways public opinion.”
Enamait, though, acknowledges that the pro-Serrano commentary was all part of the bargain into which Taylor knowingly entered. As another Netlix star, Mad Men’s Don Draper, once explained: “that’s what the money’s for”.
The Irish side of the rivalry knew that to accept a rematch against Serrano on a show run by Jake Paul would mean that things would be institutionally stacked against Taylor.
Even the punch stats were only loosely based on a true story, Enamait maintains.
“Like, the science behind CompuBox is a guy with a clicker,” he says. “We’re going to trust that as if it’s hard science?
“The first round, CompuBox said Serrano landed 20 of 48 punches — so she landed at 40-plus per cent. If you see that on paper, you’re thinking, ‘Wow, she dominated that round.’ But if you watch the round, firstly, you won’t find a punch landed by either one of them in the first 30 seconds.
“That’s a quarter of the round gone already. And the whole thing is a cagey round. Obviously, Katie gets caught with a big shot with a couple of seconds left. That wins Serrano the round, no arguments. But you’re not gonna find 19 other shots.”
The person clicking the button can be subject to their own biases, of course.
Enamait breaks into a laugh once more as he recalls how the boxing content creator Dan Canobbio, who was not obliged to be impartial but is the son of CompuBox founder Bob Canobbio, wore an MVP Promotions hat to press events in Dallas. It was that kind of week.
Advertisement
Taylor and Enamait. Gary Carr / INPHO
Gary Carr / INPHO / INPHO
“It’s funny, like, with any business, you’re subject to being audited — but nobody ever challenges CompuBox,” Enamait says. “I watch fights back in slow motion and I’m still like, ‘I don’t know if that landed, I don’t know if that landed’.
“It’s not easy. But it’s taken as exact science that Serrano broke her record, or whatever, for punches landed. And then you see online, ‘How did she lose?’ It’s nonsense.”
Netflix viewers heard similar questions posed in the ring, too, as Serrano’s trainer-manager Jordan Maldonado commandeered the microphone. But Enamait didn’t.
Maldonado’s protestation might have been beamed to 70-odd-million homes around the world but such was the sound engineering at Cowboys Stadium that it went over the heads, almost literally, of everyone else at centre-field.
“I knew he was probably bitching and moaning,” Enamait says, “but we can’t actually hear him while we’re standing there. So, it wasn’t until I watched it back where I’m like, ‘Wow, talk about being salty!’
“And salty about, let’s be honest, a very close fight,” adds Taylor’s trainer. “Like, it was the type of fight where there were a couple rounds where it’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know.’ I’ve watched it several times and I’d still have a hard time telling you who won a few of those rounds.
“If Katie and Serrano could fight a hundred times, you’re going to have a hundred close fights. The way they match up, there’s never going to be a blowout, it’s always going to be close, it’s always going to be scrappy.”
Too scrappy, Serrano and Maldonado would contend.
The cut that opened above the Puerto Rican icon’s right eye in the sixth round was egregious. It clearly inhibited her down the stretch of a violent bout. Though it was adjudged accidental, Taylor eventually became the fall girl for the boxers’ repeated head clashes and later had a point deducted.
The Puerto Ricans consequently cried foul in the aftermath, picking up where Chantelle Cameron had left off following her rematch defeat to Taylor at the 3Arena in Dublin 12 months earlier.
Serrano would later in the week water down her criticism of Taylor, acknowledging on Twitter that the Irishwoman did not intentionally deploy her head as a weapon.
Enamait, though, takes umbrage with the growing characterisation of Taylor as a dirty fighter. He believes it to be little more than sour grapes on behalf of her two closest rivals.
“Firstly, with Serrano, it’s an orthodox boxer versus a southpaw boxer, so their heads are more likely to clash. But you’ve also got an aggressive fighter coming forward, and while we’re fighting on the backfoot, we’re also trying to set traps where Katie’s stepping inside to throw her own shots.
“Sometimes it’s not a headbutt — it’s head-positioning, right? You’re trying to get your head off the line — they’re both trying to do it — and you fall in, and there’s a clash on both sides. And especially as the fight continues on, and as legs begin to tire, you’ve got that up-close aggressiveness coming from both sides.
“But to suggest that Katie’s this headbutter… Like, we heard the same thing from [Chantelle] Cameron after the second fight, and I have it all. I have the video. It’s funny that people just make these statements without actually watching the fight.
“The worst headbutt in the Cameron fight was in the eighth round when Cameron, like, flew her head into Katie’s cheek. And I know it didn’t cause the gash that Cameron had, but Katie had bruising on her cheek for months after that, y’know? And it’s never talked about because we don’t bring it up.
“Even in the Serrano rematch, there were two or three instances where Serrano actually initiated the head contact with Katie. Now, it was kind of neutral, they were both coming in, but she ‘hit’ Katie first.
“And hey, Katie’s got a hard head,” Enamait jibes.
Taylor speaks with her trainer ahead of her first bout against Delfine Persoon at Madison Square Garden in 2019. Matchroom Boxing / Mark Robinson/INPHO
Matchroom Boxing / Mark Robinson/INPHO / Mark Robinson/INPHO
“The thing with all of this,” he continues, “is that Katie’s been on top for so long that it’s like people get tired of seeing the same person get so much attention. Her audience, the fact that she brought female boxing to the Olympics, how much money she makes…
It’s like when Floyd Mayweather was on top: everybody wanted to see him lose. People talk about [Jose Luis] Castillo, [Marcos] Maidana, [Oscar] De La Hoya beating him. No, they didn’t. They didn’t beat him. They were close fights but he won. It’s the same with Katie.
“So anytime Katie’s in a close fight, there’s going to be jealousy and people are going to say, ‘Argh, it’s a robbery.’
“Try turning the volume off and watching it without bias,” Enamait says. “But listen, I appreciate that’s not always easy to do when you have an emotional attachment.”
Taylor’s trainer maintains that the atmosphere during her original bout with Serrano at the sold-out Madison Square Garden in 2022 eclipsed that of the rematch at Cowboys Stadium. But from a safe distance, now, he believes the sequel to have been the more conventionally entertaining fight of the pair.
The rematch was certainly the more blood-curdling affair — eyebrow wounds aside, even — as Taylor hung more in the pocket with her power-punching opponent, edging some of the wanton warfare that followed.
Such a tactic would have been considered a fool’s errand before the first bell sounded. When it chimed for the final, frantic time, though, it was Taylor who had gained the front foot. She bullied the bully enough for her to pinch the bout by the slimmest of margins.
Often during her career, such an approach has been the result of Taylor’s inner sicko overruling her brain. But on this occasion, it was premeditated.
“Going in,” Enamait explains, “we had talked, like, ‘We need to get some respect.’ You know, like, ‘You’re going to have to sit there and trade a little bit.’
“Now, I didn’t want to have a war, especially early on. But Katie needed to have the confidence in herself that she could stand and fight more than she did at Madison Square Garden — and she also needed to get Serrano’s respect or Serrano would just keep walking her down. I think we did that.
“You had a 38-year-old and a 36-year-old in that ring. Fatigue was going to set in. As you tire, you’re not going to be able to use your legs. You’re going to have to stand and fight. Your opponent needs to respect your ability to do that or it’s going to become more difficult.”
Taylor lands a right hand on Serrano. Ed Mulholland / INPHO
Ed Mulholland / INPHO / INPHO
In the victorious dressing room afterwards, the champion turned to her promoter. With a puff of her cheeks, Katie Taylor admitted to Eddie Hearn that “it’s getting harder”.
It’s certainly not the first time Taylor has alluded to her own mortality but it might have been the clearest admission yet that those 38-year-old legs are really beginning to feel the mileage.
Having recharged in Bray among family and friends over Christmas, the undisputed light-welterweight ruler will soon head back to her adopted home of Vernon, Connecticut, where she’ll begin training in the interest of her sanity more than anything.
A mooted trilogy bout against Serrano, over whom Taylor now holds a 2-0 record, will likely be six months away if it happens at all. If it doesn’t, perhaps only the prospect of a rubber match against Chantelle Cameron would get Taylor’s engine purring once more.
Whether it be final or not, the destination will be key: the only two itches left to scratch are Croke Park — still a pipe dream — and a more feasible headliner in Las Vegas.
It may be that Taylor actually runs out of road before she runs out of diesel. In any case, the idea of parking things altogether has not yet crossed her coach’s desk. But Enamait doesn’t anticipate too many more stops on their journey.
“It’s not something that we’ve really talked about,” he says. “You can’t be having one foot out the door while you’re trying to get in there and compete in a mega-fight, right?
“But now that the dust has settled, maybe at some point you think about it a little bit.
“If there are still big fights out there, obviously, it’s up to Katie and how she feels. And I know that she still feels well.
“Now, how many does she have left? You know, probably not many.
“At the same time — and probably not everyone’s gonna agree with this — I think in female boxing, you tend to have a little bit more longevity,” Enamait adds.
“For one thing, women are fighting shorter rounds, shorter fights (10x 2min rounds at championship level as opposed to 12x 3min rounds). For another, and it’s just the way it is, but women don’t hit as hard as men for the most part. It’s just different.
“Now, I’m not minimizing anything, either, because obviously, these women are still taking shots. That last fight was tough and they both need to take a break after that. But as a whole, female fighters do take less damage in training and less damage on fight night. So, does that play into longevity? I think a little bit.
“As a trainer, you never want to talk about, ‘Is this the last one?’ But obviously, it’s probably not too far off for Katie and when it happens, it happens.
“She could walk away right now and she’s clearly a first-ballot Hall of Famer. She’s got nothing else left to prove.”
Enamait, though, has a few parting lines before he and Taylor get to work on their last chapter.
Not many left. Gary Carr / INPHO
Gary Carr / INPHO / INPHO
“It just pissed me off seeing some of the negativity towards her after the Serrano rematch,” says Enamait. “Not that I let it get to me but at the same time, like, show her some damn respect, y’know?
Like, everything she’s done: she’s never ducked anyone, she’s fought the best, she’s got more heart than you could even explain; like, some of the things she’s fought through — and she’s willing to literally give it all to an extent that the average person — even the average fighter — can’t really comprehend to be honest with you.
“So to suggest that she’s dirty or this or that, it’s absolute nonsense and she deserves a lot more credit and respect.
“I know it didn’t necessarily come from the boxing people who know she simply won a real close fight, but seeing some the general public shitting on her afterwards, it was like, ‘Come on, be better than that. Show some class.’
“Here is this amazing fighter who’s done so much for the sport. And Serrano’s a hell of a fighter, too. I don’t deny that. But none of this would have happened without Katie.
“She’s the one who ignited this fire that’s blazing right now.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Close
5 Comments
This is YOUR comments community. Stay civil, stay constructive, stay on topic.
Please familiarise yourself with our comments policy
here
before taking part.
'Not that I let it get to me but at the same time, show her some damn respect'
TEXAS USED TO be where Irish boxing dreams went to die.
John Duddy’s career ended at the Alamodome, San Antonio, in 2010, when Julio Cesar Chavez Jr proved him sufficiently beneath world level. Two years later, Andy Lee’s first world-title tilt was halted by the same Mexican opponent at El Paso’s Sun Bowl, when an oversized Chavez ground him down in a bout now infamous for its lack of proper drug-testing procedure. More recently, Spike O’Sullivan won plenty of admiration but lost his last realistic shot at a world title when he was felled by another Mexican, Jamie Munguia, in the Lone Star State.
Those results at least tallied with the fights we watched through our fingers at the time. Within boxing, though, Texas is more broadly considered the tainted canvas on which the away boxer is most likely to get absolutely jobbed, irrespective of the judges’ backgrounds.
As New Yorker Paulie Malignaggi put it following his highly contentious defeat to local boy Juan Diaz in Houston in 2009: “This state never gives a fair shake to anyone coming to fight hometown fighters. It never happens.” Grabbing the mic from his HBO interviewer, Max Kellerman, Malignaggi then invoked ‘The Fight’ between Pernell Whitaker and Julio Cesar Chavez Sr: an era-defining showdown held in San Antonio in 1993 in which Whitaker soundly outboxed the Mexican all-time great (whose aforementioned son would go on to beat both Duddy and Lee) only for the judges to manufacture a draw.
Boxing, Malignaggi would declare 16 years later, was still “full of shit”, and particularly so in Texas.
That’s why it was almost jarring to hear the words “and still” in November 2024 as Katie Taylor’s exhausted arm was raised in triumph over Amanda Serrano, the promotional A-side and home-country fighter who, let’s face it, was ‘supposed to’ win to satisfy the industry demand for a trilogy bout.
That boxing was so void of shit on that night in Dallas felt genuinely anomalous.
“Like, honestly, with Texas, I was a little worried about the judges,” says Taylor’s trainer, Ross Enamait. “And on an MVP card, too (Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotions steer Serrano’s career).
“I had no idea what to expect. I knew the fight was very close. So, I’m sitting there like, ‘Geez…’ You know? Like, who knows what the judges are looking at, right? You never know.”
It was a rare occasion on which the home side were left to shriek robbery as the visiting boxer pulled off the most gratifying smash-and-grab.
The beauty of it from an Irish perspective was that there was no reason to feel guilty about the decision awarded to Taylor. It was just a great victory, likely the best of her 20-plus-year career given the circumstances. Most real boxing people sided overwhelmingly with the Irishwoman: Americans Terence Crawford, Shakur Stevenson, Claressa Shields, Caleb Plant, Teddy Atlas and Christy Martin were among those who believed Taylor deserving of her fractional win over their compatriot or, in Shields’ case, friend.
But boxing is a minority sport and, for a few hours at least, it appeared on social media as though the majority of viewers had been swept up in the hurricane of emotion conjured by the American commentary team, one of whom went as far as to say the victory would be accompanied on Taylor’s CV by an asterisk.
Rosie Perez has since apologised for this remark and rowed back on her criticism of the judges’ decision. But she wasn’t alone in taking creative licence while cheerleading for Serrano.
“If you actually listen to the fight on Netflix,” says trainer Enamait, still incredulous, “like, Round 3: we box really well, we actually won it on all three of the judges’ scorecards in reality, right? And I remember telling Katie at the time, ‘That pace suits us all day. Keep boxing like that. That’s what we want.’
“And then watching the fight back, Mauro Ranallo (lead commentator) says at the start of Round 4: ‘Concern in the undisputed champion’s corner…’
Enamait laughs. “It’s like… ‘Did you just watch the last round? We just won the round clear.’ All three judges gave it to us but the commentary at the time paints a picture of concern and when you do that, it sways public opinion.”
Enamait, though, acknowledges that the pro-Serrano commentary was all part of the bargain into which Taylor knowingly entered. As another Netlix star, Mad Men’s Don Draper, once explained: “that’s what the money’s for”.
The Irish side of the rivalry knew that to accept a rematch against Serrano on a show run by Jake Paul would mean that things would be institutionally stacked against Taylor.
Even the punch stats were only loosely based on a true story, Enamait maintains.
“Like, the science behind CompuBox is a guy with a clicker,” he says. “We’re going to trust that as if it’s hard science?
“The first round, CompuBox said Serrano landed 20 of 48 punches — so she landed at 40-plus per cent. If you see that on paper, you’re thinking, ‘Wow, she dominated that round.’ But if you watch the round, firstly, you won’t find a punch landed by either one of them in the first 30 seconds.
“That’s a quarter of the round gone already. And the whole thing is a cagey round. Obviously, Katie gets caught with a big shot with a couple of seconds left. That wins Serrano the round, no arguments. But you’re not gonna find 19 other shots.”
The person clicking the button can be subject to their own biases, of course.
Enamait breaks into a laugh once more as he recalls how the boxing content creator Dan Canobbio, who was not obliged to be impartial but is the son of CompuBox founder Bob Canobbio, wore an MVP Promotions hat to press events in Dallas. It was that kind of week.
“It’s funny, like, with any business, you’re subject to being audited — but nobody ever challenges CompuBox,” Enamait says. “I watch fights back in slow motion and I’m still like, ‘I don’t know if that landed, I don’t know if that landed’.
“It’s not easy. But it’s taken as exact science that Serrano broke her record, or whatever, for punches landed. And then you see online, ‘How did she lose?’ It’s nonsense.”
Netflix viewers heard similar questions posed in the ring, too, as Serrano’s trainer-manager Jordan Maldonado commandeered the microphone. But Enamait didn’t.
Maldonado’s protestation might have been beamed to 70-odd-million homes around the world but such was the sound engineering at Cowboys Stadium that it went over the heads, almost literally, of everyone else at centre-field.
“I knew he was probably bitching and moaning,” Enamait says, “but we can’t actually hear him while we’re standing there. So, it wasn’t until I watched it back where I’m like, ‘Wow, talk about being salty!’
“And salty about, let’s be honest, a very close fight,” adds Taylor’s trainer. “Like, it was the type of fight where there were a couple rounds where it’s like, ‘Man, I don’t know.’ I’ve watched it several times and I’d still have a hard time telling you who won a few of those rounds.
“If Katie and Serrano could fight a hundred times, you’re going to have a hundred close fights. The way they match up, there’s never going to be a blowout, it’s always going to be close, it’s always going to be scrappy.”
Too scrappy, Serrano and Maldonado would contend.
The cut that opened above the Puerto Rican icon’s right eye in the sixth round was egregious. It clearly inhibited her down the stretch of a violent bout. Though it was adjudged accidental, Taylor eventually became the fall girl for the boxers’ repeated head clashes and later had a point deducted.
The Puerto Ricans consequently cried foul in the aftermath, picking up where Chantelle Cameron had left off following her rematch defeat to Taylor at the 3Arena in Dublin 12 months earlier.
Serrano would later in the week water down her criticism of Taylor, acknowledging on Twitter that the Irishwoman did not intentionally deploy her head as a weapon.
Enamait, though, takes umbrage with the growing characterisation of Taylor as a dirty fighter. He believes it to be little more than sour grapes on behalf of her two closest rivals.
“Firstly, with Serrano, it’s an orthodox boxer versus a southpaw boxer, so their heads are more likely to clash. But you’ve also got an aggressive fighter coming forward, and while we’re fighting on the backfoot, we’re also trying to set traps where Katie’s stepping inside to throw her own shots.
“Sometimes it’s not a headbutt — it’s head-positioning, right? You’re trying to get your head off the line — they’re both trying to do it — and you fall in, and there’s a clash on both sides. And especially as the fight continues on, and as legs begin to tire, you’ve got that up-close aggressiveness coming from both sides.
“But to suggest that Katie’s this headbutter… Like, we heard the same thing from [Chantelle] Cameron after the second fight, and I have it all. I have the video. It’s funny that people just make these statements without actually watching the fight.
“The worst headbutt in the Cameron fight was in the eighth round when Cameron, like, flew her head into Katie’s cheek. And I know it didn’t cause the gash that Cameron had, but Katie had bruising on her cheek for months after that, y’know? And it’s never talked about because we don’t bring it up.
“Even in the Serrano rematch, there were two or three instances where Serrano actually initiated the head contact with Katie. Now, it was kind of neutral, they were both coming in, but she ‘hit’ Katie first.
“And hey, Katie’s got a hard head,” Enamait jibes.
“The thing with all of this,” he continues, “is that Katie’s been on top for so long that it’s like people get tired of seeing the same person get so much attention. Her audience, the fact that she brought female boxing to the Olympics, how much money she makes…
“So anytime Katie’s in a close fight, there’s going to be jealousy and people are going to say, ‘Argh, it’s a robbery.’
“Try turning the volume off and watching it without bias,” Enamait says. “But listen, I appreciate that’s not always easy to do when you have an emotional attachment.”
Taylor’s trainer maintains that the atmosphere during her original bout with Serrano at the sold-out Madison Square Garden in 2022 eclipsed that of the rematch at Cowboys Stadium. But from a safe distance, now, he believes the sequel to have been the more conventionally entertaining fight of the pair.
The rematch was certainly the more blood-curdling affair — eyebrow wounds aside, even — as Taylor hung more in the pocket with her power-punching opponent, edging some of the wanton warfare that followed.
Such a tactic would have been considered a fool’s errand before the first bell sounded. When it chimed for the final, frantic time, though, it was Taylor who had gained the front foot. She bullied the bully enough for her to pinch the bout by the slimmest of margins.
Often during her career, such an approach has been the result of Taylor’s inner sicko overruling her brain. But on this occasion, it was premeditated.
“Going in,” Enamait explains, “we had talked, like, ‘We need to get some respect.’ You know, like, ‘You’re going to have to sit there and trade a little bit.’
“Now, I didn’t want to have a war, especially early on. But Katie needed to have the confidence in herself that she could stand and fight more than she did at Madison Square Garden — and she also needed to get Serrano’s respect or Serrano would just keep walking her down. I think we did that.
“You had a 38-year-old and a 36-year-old in that ring. Fatigue was going to set in. As you tire, you’re not going to be able to use your legs. You’re going to have to stand and fight. Your opponent needs to respect your ability to do that or it’s going to become more difficult.”
In the victorious dressing room afterwards, the champion turned to her promoter. With a puff of her cheeks, Katie Taylor admitted to Eddie Hearn that “it’s getting harder”.
It’s certainly not the first time Taylor has alluded to her own mortality but it might have been the clearest admission yet that those 38-year-old legs are really beginning to feel the mileage.
Having recharged in Bray among family and friends over Christmas, the undisputed light-welterweight ruler will soon head back to her adopted home of Vernon, Connecticut, where she’ll begin training in the interest of her sanity more than anything.
A mooted trilogy bout against Serrano, over whom Taylor now holds a 2-0 record, will likely be six months away if it happens at all. If it doesn’t, perhaps only the prospect of a rubber match against Chantelle Cameron would get Taylor’s engine purring once more.
Whether it be final or not, the destination will be key: the only two itches left to scratch are Croke Park — still a pipe dream — and a more feasible headliner in Las Vegas.
It may be that Taylor actually runs out of road before she runs out of diesel. In any case, the idea of parking things altogether has not yet crossed her coach’s desk. But Enamait doesn’t anticipate too many more stops on their journey.
“It’s not something that we’ve really talked about,” he says. “You can’t be having one foot out the door while you’re trying to get in there and compete in a mega-fight, right?
“But now that the dust has settled, maybe at some point you think about it a little bit.
“If there are still big fights out there, obviously, it’s up to Katie and how she feels. And I know that she still feels well.
“Now, how many does she have left? You know, probably not many.
“At the same time — and probably not everyone’s gonna agree with this — I think in female boxing, you tend to have a little bit more longevity,” Enamait adds.
“For one thing, women are fighting shorter rounds, shorter fights (10x 2min rounds at championship level as opposed to 12x 3min rounds). For another, and it’s just the way it is, but women don’t hit as hard as men for the most part. It’s just different.
“Now, I’m not minimizing anything, either, because obviously, these women are still taking shots. That last fight was tough and they both need to take a break after that. But as a whole, female fighters do take less damage in training and less damage on fight night. So, does that play into longevity? I think a little bit.
“As a trainer, you never want to talk about, ‘Is this the last one?’ But obviously, it’s probably not too far off for Katie and when it happens, it happens.
“She could walk away right now and she’s clearly a first-ballot Hall of Famer. She’s got nothing else left to prove.”
Enamait, though, has a few parting lines before he and Taylor get to work on their last chapter.
“It just pissed me off seeing some of the negativity towards her after the Serrano rematch,” says Enamait. “Not that I let it get to me but at the same time, like, show her some damn respect, y’know?
“So to suggest that she’s dirty or this or that, it’s absolute nonsense and she deserves a lot more credit and respect.
“I know it didn’t necessarily come from the boxing people who know she simply won a real close fight, but seeing some the general public shitting on her afterwards, it was like, ‘Come on, be better than that. Show some class.’
“Here is this amazing fighter who’s done so much for the sport. And Serrano’s a hell of a fighter, too. I don’t deny that. But none of this would have happened without Katie.
“She’s the one who ignited this fire that’s blazing right now.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Boxing Katie Taylor the last dance