DELFINE PERSOON MADE a ninth successful defence of her WBC title in Belgium on Saturday night to potentially set up a clash with Katie Taylor for the undisputed lightweight championship at Madison Square Garden on 1 June.
The 34-year-old Persoon, whose record now stands at 43-1 with 18 wins by stoppage, took just six rounds to walk down the game Melissa St Vil in what was, on paper, one of the toughest tests of her 10-year professional career.
St Vil, who was unlucky not to get the nod against Taylor’s most recent opponent, Eva Wahlstrom, last year, suffered a first stoppage defeat of her own career as she failed to answer the bell for the seventh.
It was the Haitian-American who started the brighter, marauding forward and catching Persoon with plenty of winging shots off either hand, but the Belgian — famed for her engine — seized control in the third and turned the tables on her opponent to claim a statement win.
In victory, Persoon holds up her end of the bargain with regards to an undisputed title clash with Taylor, which has been tentatively pencilled in for the Anthony Joshua-Jarrell Miller card in New York on 1 June.
Taylor must first see past WBO champion Rose Volante in her upcoming unification clash in Philadelphia next Friday. Provided Taylor adds the WBO title to her WBA and IBF straps, she will meet long-reigning WBC beltholder Persoon in a big one in the Big Apple.
Should it come to fruition, the winner of Taylor-Persoon will become only the fourth active boxer — male or female — to hold all four major belts in their division. Norway’s Cecilia Braekhus and Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk are already undisputed champs, while the winner of the women’s superfight between America’s Claressa Shields and Kazakh-German Christina Hammer will join them on 13 April.
Victory next Friday would also see Taylor become the first-ever Irish fighter to hold three of the four major belts simultaneously.
Andy Dunne joins Murray Kinsella and Ryan Bailey to discuss Joe Schmidt’s undroppables and how France might attack Ireland’s predictability in The42 Rugby Weekly.
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