Katie Taylor climbed between the ropes at Madison Square
Garden’s Hulu Theatre back in February not only to congratulate a
blood-drenched and victorious Amanda Serrano, but to be on hand while Eddie
Hearn announced their rematch for May 20 in Dublin. Each woman's arms were
weighted down with gold belts as they stood across from one another, Amanda
just having triumphed in brutal fashion over WBA featherweight title holder
Erika Cruz to become undisputed champion.
Taylor and Serrano now both possessed all the hardware in
their respective divisions, adding an unprecedented element of historic
significance to their return bout, as if the fact that this would be Katie
Taylor’s first professional outing in Ireland wasn’t enough icing on an already
multi-layered cake. An extra sweet treat for the fans who deliriously gorged on
their headlining fight of the year last April to enjoy during this homecoming
party for Katie.
The celebration was short-lived, however. Just four weeks
later came Serrano’s withdrawal from the fight due to an undisclosed injury
suffered during training, pushing the rematch back theoretically until early
autumn. Already inactive since last October when she decisioned Karen Carbajal,
Taylor was not content to sit on idle hands until then.
Katie quickly took to social media to see if Chantelle
Cameron, who herself wasted little time throwing her hat into the ring as a
hopeful replacement for Serrano, was earnestly up to the challenge for May 20.
She got her response almost immediately. “Let’s do it!” tweeted Cameron. It was
pretty much that easy to get the match made and the fans’ disappointment at not
getting the sequel to Taylor vs. Serrano was soon forgotten.
It’s still undisputed vs undisputed on May 20, only now
with Katie moving up to 140 pounds and Cameron risking her complete set of
belts. Chantelle added the missing pieces to her super-lightweight crown by
beating then-undisputed welterweight champion Jessica McCaskill last November,
defending her WBC and IBF titles and picking up the WBA, WBO, and IBO belts
vacated by Kali Reis in the process.
Taylor and Cameron last shared a ring twelve years ago in
the semi-finals of the 2011 EUBC Women’s EU Championships in Katowice, Poland.
With only thirteen previous contests and one international tournament under her
belt at the time, Cameron admitted to being “starstruck” in the presence of
Taylor, whose praises had been sung to her by Savannah Marshall and Nicola
Adams. Both of Chantelle’s teammates enthused over Katie as being “a God in Boxing”
and Taylor’s reputation indeed preceded her even back then.
Overcoming gender-biased adversity just to gain the
opportunity to record the first official entry on her amateur ledger almost a
full decade prior to tangling with Cameron in Poland, the Irish phenom had
competed in excess of 120 fights to date with fewer than ten losses among them.
Taylor would easily outpoint a captivated and overmatched Cameron 28-10 and go
on to defeat Karolina Graczyk of the host country the very next day to add yet
another championship victory to her ever-growing tally.
If her accomplishments up to that point were already the
stuff of legend, winning gold at the 2012 Olympics solidified Katie’s status as
a full-fledged deity walking amongst mere mortals. Even if her wings were
clipped and she was humbly brought back down to earth four years later in Rio,
prompting Taylor to build onto her legacy at the professional level. Which she
has undoubtedly done.
While campaigning in the 135-pound weight class, where
she won the IBO world championship in only her fifth pro fight, Cameron was
named by the WBC as Katie’s mandatory challenger in July 2019 after
successfully defending her Silver title with a resounding ten-round decision
over Anisha Basheel. Taylor had just controversially unseated reigning WBC
world champion Delfine Persoon one month prior at Madison Square Garden to
become undisputed at lightweight. “My strengths are her weaknesses,” boasted a
still respectful but more self-confident and less starry-eyed Cameron about
battling her hero, insisting that Katie would “crumble” under the pressure she
would apply.
Chantelle grew weary of waiting by the phone for a call
that clearly wasn’t coming. Having dipped her toes into the 140-pound waters on
two previous occasions, Cameron opted to commit to the super-lightweight
division and won the vacant WBC world title in October 2020 by shutting out
previously undefeated Adriana dos Santos Araujo, her first obstacle overcome on
the road to undisputed. An improved and more multifaceted boxer now than she
was four years ago, much less than since getting schooled by Taylor in 2011,
Cameron poses a very credible threat to Katie’s untarnished professional
record. For that matter, Chantelle too has yet to taste defeat as a pro.
Not that she could have ever been defined as a
one-dimensional fighter, but the heavy-handed Cameron has added impressive
variables to her all-around boxing technique while simultaneously increasing
her ring IQ since joining forces with current coach Jamie Moore. This is as
good a time as any to discuss Chantelle’s split from previous trainer Shane
McGuigan and its ramifications on the May 20 homecoming card in Dublin. We’ll
get back to Moore momentarily.
Ellie Scotney, who is trained by McGuigan, was slated to
challenge IBF super-bantamweight world champion Cherneka Johnson on the
Taylor/Cameron undercard. No sooner was the announcement of the fight made
public than it was yanked off the bill, with Matchroom citing a request on
behalf of Team Cameron that McGuigan not be involved with the show in any
capacity.
This was not the arbitrary demand of some diva it might
have been mistaken for. Chantelle’s parting of ways with McGuigan was founded
upon the necessity to extricate herself from what she contends was an
atmosphere of mistreatment stemming from toxic masculinity. A nondisclosure
pact prevents Cameron from going into specifics but suffice it to say the
situation was harmful to her mental health. To the point where Chantelle
seriously considered quitting boxing. It tells you everything you need to know
that the mere thought of having McGuigan in the same building on the biggest
night of her life was a deal breaker for Cameron.
Eddie Hearn, fearful that Chantelle would walk away
otherwise, which he later divulged was a very real possibility, granted her
wish. Scotney was understandably upset by the expulsion and voiced her
displeasure on social media, her remarks singling out Cameron who responded
with an apology along with an appeal for Ellie’s sympathy for the emotional
dilemma she found herself mired in. The Cherneka Johnson/Ellie Scotney title
fight has since found a new home at Wembley Arena on June 10.
Katie Taylor has a proven track record of exhibiting not
just a simple willingness but a deep desire to take the biggest and best fights
available. The fact that she handpicked Chantelle Cameron as a substitute for
Amanda Serrano for her homecoming dance partner gives every indication that
Katie is true to her word. “This is one of the most exciting fights out there
right now and once I heard Serrano was out,” Taylor commented, “I thought
Chantelle was the obvious choice as she has the style to make this another epic
and it could be another contender for fight of the year.”
It goes without saying that headlining a fight card in her
homeland as an undefeated, undisputed world champion is a very momentous event
for Katie. That it was so long in the making speaks to the logistical nightmare
of staging a major boxing card in Dublin. The security risk involved can be
traced back to a fatal shooting that occurred during a 2016 weigh-in at the
Regency Hotel. An escalation of the long-running blood feud between the Kinahan
and Hutch cartels, it is believed that this was an attempted hit on boxing
promoter and organized crime leader Daniel Kinahan, who ran the now defunct MTK
Global and guided the career of Chantelle Cameron among others. Despite the
fact that Cameron is no longer represented by Kinahan’s management, a
tangential connection remains by way of her trainer Jamie Moore, who is known to
have had direct ties to the gang boss for some time.
Theoretically, Taylor’s dream of fighting in Ireland
could not have been realized unless Kinahan, and the potential for random acts
of violence his association with the sport represented, was removed from the
equation. However, even with the sanctions placed against Kinahan and
subsequent disbandment of MTK Global, Croke Park demanded what Eddie Hearn
complained was an unreasonable security deposit of €500,000 to host Katie’s
homecoming, what with Kinahan still at large and posing a threat. Despite UFC
fighter and Taylor supporter Conor McGregor intervening with an offer to foot
the bill, the event was moved to the considerably smaller and more manageable 3Arena.
With a seating capacity of 8,000, 3Arena can accommodate
only one-tenth the number of spectators as the 82,000-seat Croke Park where it
is hoped the rescheduled Taylor/Serrano rematch will still take place, assuming
it does. Taylor’s change of opponent and the pending outcome of her bout
against Cameron present a choose-your-own-adventure array of alternate
possibilities.
For starters, if Cameron can rain on Katie’s homecoming
parade and pull off the upset, she of course becomes an immediate superstar but
both women still retain their respective belts and go their separate ways.
Unless their bout is an instant classic, warranting a second go-around. If so,
when? And at what weight next time?
Things get far more interesting in the event Taylor
emerges victorious. As a two-division undisputed champion, she can’t have her
cake and eat it too in two weight classes simultaneously, forcing her into
making a difficult decision. Will she vacate the super-lightweight title and
return to 135 from whence she came? Or does Katie keep Cameron’s titles, stay
at 140, relinquish her claim to the lightweight crown, and offer Chantelle a
shot at redemption?
And, win, lose, or draw, where does all this leave Amanda
Serrano, who we now know will make the first defense of her undisputed
featherweight championship in a rematch with Heather ‘The Heat’ Hardy on August
5 in Dallas, Texas? Can the Puerto Rican sensation still contractually claim
dibs on Katie Taylor after May 20, taking for granted she first beats Hardy a
second time?
In another tantalizing matchup, Terri Harper and Cecilia
Braekhus were extended a joint invitation to Taylor’s homecoming. Harper will
be defending her WBA super-welterweight title, which she claimed from
then-champion Hannah Rankin last September. She has jumped up four divisions
since surrendering her WBC and IBO super-featherweight straps to now-undisputed
titleholder Alycia Baumgardner via fourth-round TKO.
Harper originally tried in vain to secure an undisputed
showdown versus her old super-featherweight rival and current WBC/WBO/IBF 154-pound
belt holder Natasha Jonas for May 20. Jonas was also offered the Claressa
Shields fight in Detroit on June 3, but allegedly priced herself out of that
opportunity as well.
For Braekhus, this will be only her second fight since
losing a bid to reclaim her welterweight crown from Jessica McCaskill in 2021
following an eleven-year reign. Braekhus spent six of those years as undisputed
champion, the first female in the four-belt era to have earned that
distinction. Her last outing was a six-rounder in which Cecilia outpointed
Marisa Joana Portillo this past December.
Highly-touted flyweight prospect and new Matchroom
contractee Maisey Rose Courtney will also be featured on the Dublin bill,
squaring off against 3-1 Kate Radomska in a six-round prelim. This may only be
Maisey’s third pro bout but it’s her second appearance on a Katie Taylor
undercard which is a big deal for Courtney, who made her debut in the paid
ranks by outpointing Judit Hachbold last October 29 with Taylor as the Wembley
Arena headliner.
“I wanted real adventures to happen to myself. But real
adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home. They must
be sought abroad,” wrote James Joyce in his short story collection Dubliners.
The same sentiments apply to the boxer born in Bray in
County Wicklow but who has lived and trained in Connecticut since turning pro
seven years ago. By the necessity of her chosen trade, she has traveled the
world for two decades amassing trophies, medals, and championship belts by the
dozen in front of capacity crowds swarming with her legions of swooning
devotees.
On May 20, her adventures bring her full circle. Back to
where her journey began. Ireland. Home to poets, saints, and madmen. And Katie
Taylor.
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