A COUPLE OF months after she took on one of the most daunting away trips in world boxing and handed Katie Taylor the first defeat of her professional career, Chantelle Cameron returned to see a different side of Ireland while she was off the clock.
The undisputed light-welterweight champion and her Irish partner, Claire, decided to take in the Wild Atlantic Way on a summer holiday.
They disembarked in Cork in a campervan and headed up towards Mayo, by which stage Cameron insisted that they begin to sleep in hotels instead because she was “a bit scared”.
Cameron was besotted with the Cliffs of Moher. She and Claire also popped over to Inis Mór — Cameron vomited on the ferry back to the mainland — and they explored more of Galway before making tracks back towards Cork.
All in all, the second trip to Ireland was almost as enjoyable as the first.
There was a moment of profoundness somewhere in the afterglow of Cameron’s greatest victory during which she messaged Katie Taylor on Instagram. It read something along the lines of, “Thank you for the opportunity and hope you and your family are well.”
“I was just being sincere,” Cameron recalls. “It was just personal. It wasn’t for everyone to see and say, ‘Ah, she’s messaged Katie Taylor, what a good person.’
“It was. . . just how I think I would have felt if I was on the other end and if I’d lost; I’d probably be feeling a bit rubbish so it was just a message to say I’m grateful for the opportunity.”
Taylor saw the message. She never responded.
“Some would see that as disrespect, but it’s not,” said Eddie Hearn at Friday’s weigh-in of Taylor’s supposed snubbing of Cameron’s well wishes.
The promoter’s interpretation was instead that Taylor’s stonewall sent its own kind of message: “‘I ain’t friends with you. I’m about to rematch you. My whole next three or four months are going to be just driven by my need to beat you. So I ain’t replying.’” He took a bit of creative licence with the word ‘ain’t', but the rest of it tracks.
We were never furnished with Taylor’s version of events. The story itself is perfectly consistent with the energy of this fight week in Dublin.
Taylor has engaged in the pre-fight pageantry only to the minimum extent required of her. At Thursday’s press conference, she declined to speak with the press in so far as was possible. For the first time ever, she declined a 15-minute roundtable chat with her home media.
Taylor still had to address the room from the top table as was contractually obliged, and she used it as an opportunity to provide context to her relative silence this week.
“I feel a lot better this time around,” Taylor said. “I feel ready to step in there. There’s nothing else to say, really.
“I hate all the talk, I hate all these press conferences. There’s nothing to say. I’m just ready to fight at this stage.”
🗣️ “I feel a lot better this time around. There's nothing else to say... I hate all this - I'm just ready to fight!” - @KatieTaylor#CameronTaylor2 | @DAZNBoxing pic.twitter.com/DeF2F7nfKs
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) November 23, 2023
And even as an Irish journalist whose plans for the next couple of days were partly predicated upon getting a few moments of Taylor’s time — a reasonable expectation at a promotional press conference — one couldn’t help but feel: ‘Yeah, that’s fair enough, actually.’
This fight week is Taylor’s 24th such rigmarole since late 2016. She’s fighting the same opponent as last time. She spoke to 17 journalists from Ireland, Britain and America on a Zoom call only a couple of weeks ago.
There probably is nothing left to say. (Mind you, it would have been nice to have bookended Cameron’s Insta yarn).
It’s become clear that, having scrutinised her defeat to Cameron the first time around, Taylor has formed a narrative in her head that she gave too much of herself during the week’s lead-in back in May: too many interviews, too many promotional videos, too much pulling and dragging and acquiescing and feck-arseing.
She might well have a point, by the way. Even if she doesn’t, the alternative would be for Taylor to just accept that, at 37, and having ostensibly lived as a full-time boxer for two thirds of her life, her time might be up. And most boxers of her tenure will lean into every other possible caveat before submitting to that scary thought.
So, Taylor has opted for a bullshit-free week in search of the few per cent she was missing against Cameron six months ago. Saturday will provide her with conclusive answers, by hook or by a few of them.
The dynamic could scarcely have flipped more dramatically from original to sequel.
Back in May, it was Cameron who seemed allergic to journalists’ questions and she carried into the 3Arena a few of her own: was she really good enough? How would she deal with her first proper ‘occasion’ against an opponent who had already shouldered the weight of so many of them? Even if she was to best Taylor, could she depend on the judges to score the fight fairly in Dublin?
If she didn’t know then, she knows now. And Cameron has been suitably ebullient all week, striding around Dublin like she runs the place, chatty by her standards; a stark contrast to the shy Northampton girl who seemed genuinely spooked by the extent to which she was the ‘away’ fighter six months ago.
Eddie Hearn has gone as far as to wonder out loud if Cameron might be over-confident this week.
Again, it’s not impossible. Cameron’s victory in May was conclusive but it has also grown legs since: there exists a line of thinking that she handled Taylor with relative ease. She didn’t. It was a gruelling fight and while Cameron was deserving of her decision victory, it’s tough to make the case for the score having been anything other than 96-94, or 6-4 in rounds.
The word from Cameron’s camp is that she’s convinced she can stop Taylor this time around and, while the Englishwoman packs a wallop, she didn’t even significantly hurt Taylor in their original meeting.
Cameron herself wasn’t especially hurt by the lighter-fisted Taylor, either, and that can lead to all sorts of illusions about simply mowing Taylor down in the rematch. To try to do so would be an act of folly. It would arguably hand Taylor the keys.
A lot of this might be little more than wishful thinking from an Irish perspective because, half a year on from the original, the clearest path to a Taylor victory still involves Cameron fumbling the ball to some degree.
But Taylor surely won’t begin in such a flat manner again. If her whole vibe this week is any indication, she should be on it — or at least as close to it as is possible at this stage of the game. Indeed, one of the few things of note that she has divulged this week is that she has never in her life been so motivated for a fight.
There will be loads of variables which will only unveil themselves from about 10pm, of course, but just for argument’s sake: if the sequel were to incorporate a similar plotline to the original, Taylor would have to become only two rounds better off tonight in order to reverse the result. Theoretically, anyway, that doesn’t seem impossible for a boxer of her calibre.
Make no mistake about it: against a naturally larger, younger, fresher, excellent boxer in Cameron, Taylor is the underdog with good reason. But as we saw against Amanda Serrano at Madison Square Garden 18 months ago, the more this underdog is backed into a corner, the harder she bites. And Taylor has never before been boxed in to this extent, her career as a truly elite prizefighter on the line.
Maybe. Just maybe.
📜 Running order for #CameronTaylor2 tomorrow
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) November 24, 2023
It all goes down at the @3ArenaDublin live on @DAZNBoxing 👊 pic.twitter.com/Xl1sqFRS4J
Beneath the main event, then, Matchroom’s Dublin card is ripe with intrigue and even a couple of domestic derbies to get the blood — and the pints — flowing early.
In the first bout with Irish interest, unbeaten Galway man John Cooney (9-0, 2KOs) squares off with Dubliner Liam Gaynor (10-4, 0KOs) for the Celtic super-featherweight title. Tonight will be Gaynor’s first outing in his hometown since he faced Krzysztof Rogowski in City West as a teenager in 2017. Both lads have fizzed in the build-up and the winner should get more work out of Hearn, who currently promotes neither man.
That’s equally true of the second all-Irish showdown: Dublin’s Tokyo Olympian Emmet Brennan (1-0, 0KOs) will challenge Limerick’s Jamie Morrissey (5-0-1, 1KO) for the Celtic light-heavyweight strap in only his second pro bout since turning over earlier this year.
Brennan, who has remarkably shipped almost 700 of the 8,000-odd tickets sold, is managed by Hearn’s first ever world champion, Darren Barker. Brennan’s tearful Olympic exit interview, which endeared him to the wider Irish public in 2021, indirectly led to this potentially game-changing opportunity.
The 32-year-old, though, is taking a leap of faith in agreeing to an eight-round battle with the equally likeable Morrissey, 29, whose most recent bouts were long and brilliant battles with Kerry man Kevin Cronin.
Over 250 fans are expected to trek up from Shannonside to back the six-foot-five former Muay Thai fighter, meaning Brennan and Morrissey will have put bums into more than 10% of the seats at the 3Arena tonight.
⚖️ WEIGH-IN AND FACE-OFF 👀@emmetbrennan91 vs Jamie Morrisey
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) November 24, 2023
🛡️ Celtic Light Heavyweight Title#BrennanMorrisey #CameronTaylor2 pic.twitter.com/KVDzr8YX2V
Their bout, and that between Cooney and Gaynor, will be streamed live, for free, on DAZN’s YouTube channel from around 4:10pm.
The first Irishman up on the main card (DAZN’s streaming platform only) will be charismatic Dublin heavyweight Thomas Carty (6-0, 5KOs), who hosts the slightly more reserved Yorkshireman Dan Garber (5-1, 1KO) sometime after 7.
The 28-year-old ‘Bomber’ Carty is gradually becoming appointment viewing — not only in the ring from where he nearly took the roof off the 3Arena on the undercard of Taylor-Cameron I, but in staredowns where his quick wit left Garber on the backfoot at Thursday’s presser.
Carty Party loading.... ⏳
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) November 23, 2023
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛🔲🔲
Mic'd up H2H for #CartyGarber pic.twitter.com/sDY3BIAa99
A highly regarded former amateur talent, Carty is managed by England’s longtime heavyweight contender Dillian Whyte and trained by Paschal Collins, both of whom have the explosive southpaw moving on an upward curve.
Next up will be the turn of Andy Lee’s star pupil Paddy Donovan, (11-0, 8KOs), who has swapped Bob Arum’s Top Rank for Hearn’s Matchroom and was recently described by Teddy Atlas as Irish boxing’s most exciting prospect.
That bold claim will come under immediate examination from Englishman Danny Ball (13-1-1, 6KOs). Ball has his own aspirations of career progression and should prove a difficult night’s work for Limerick’s Donovan, for whom the right kind of victory would befit his ‘Real Deal’ ring moniker.
Then, in the evening’s penultimate bout, Naas lightweight Gary Cully (16-1, 10KOs) looks to get the show back on the road after his career was temporarily derailed by his stunning stoppage defeat to Jose Felix at the same venue in May.
Back in the co-main event slot, the tall and rangy Cully will also face a stern test in the shape of Doncaster’s Reece Mould (18-1, 6KOs), who doesn’t punch as hard as Felix but who’s not shy on the trigger, either.
Cully parted company with Pete Taylor following his sole career defeat and has been rebuilding himself under the highly rated Joe McNally in Liverpool’s Rotunda Gym.
All going to plan from an Irish point of view, Cully will inject a bit of maniacal energy into the arena ahead of the big one.
