FIFTH-CLASS STUDENT CARLY Burke was able to wrangle a day off school on Wednesday to catch a glimpse of her hero.
The 11-year-old is not quite yet a boxer, more a footballer, but she spars with her brothers in the garden.
They must be decent knock-arounds.
At about the time that Carly would usually be heading on big break at St Mary’s NS in Sandyford, Co. Dublin, she instead found herself putting the undisputed lightweight champion of the world through her paces.
Seemingly at random, Katie Taylor paused her warm-up at a public event in Dundrum Town Centre and beckoned Carly over the railings to join her in the ring. There was zero hesitation on behalf of the young challenger, who doesn’t even yet belong to a boxing club but bounded up the steps like a fighter who has been there and seen it all.
A couple of a hundred attendants watched Carly and a beaming Taylor shadow-box for about a round, wheeling around the ring and trading combinations from a safe distance. Taylor, in her element as she often is around young fans, eventually leaned back on the ropes and beckoned Carly towards her in the way that she has previously goaded live, adult opponents, ensuring Carly got the full treatment.
What a moment ✨ @KatieTaylor #TaylorCameron pic.twitter.com/ZErE8eEGiH
— Matchroom Boxing (@MatchroomBoxing) May 17, 2023
There was an embrace before Carly exited stage left where her mum, Claire Byrne, watched her handle a smattering of journalists keen to give her her dues in articles like this one. Back in the ring, meanwhile, the still-smiling Taylor gave a kind of head tilt towards her trainer, Ross Enamait, as if to say, ‘That was enough of a workout.’
Enamait agreed: in fairness, she hasn’t been preparing for a southpaw.
In the end, Taylor didn’t even hit the pads. She instead left the ring to greet a congregation of kids who had earlier screamed so loudly upon her appearance that the MMA journalist Ariel Helwani, who is lending a hand to Matchroom’s media output this week, described it as being akin to Justin Bieber emerging for the first time at a concert.
None of this was Katie Taylor’s first rodeo but it was Dublin’s first of its kind for a long time.
Ahead of her first ever professional bout in Ireland this Saturday night, and the first major boxing card to be staged in the Republic of Ireland since 2014, there was a visible garda presence in Dundrum. It detracted none from the ebullient atmosphere, however, as people lined the gallery around ‘Pembroke Square’ — perhaps best known as the big, open space between Wagamama, Nando’s and The Port House — from even a couple of hours before Taylor was due to throw a few shapes.
On the boxers’ side of the ring, old Irish boxing friends — some of them former national teammates — reacquainted ahead of their bouts on Taylor’s undercard. Journalists and broadcasters traded predictions for the main event through their sides of their mouths. Four packs of Conor McGregor’s new stout, which is a sponsor for Saturday’s card, lay untouched in the searing heat as God intended.
Even Taylor’s opponent, the undisputed light-welterweight champion Chantelle Cameron, must have been surprised by the politeness with which she was received into the ring, a fairly hearty applause greeting her name as it was bellowed out by the dreadlocked MC David Diamante.
Cameron, working out with her assistant trainer Nigel Travis, nonetheless whacked the pads with the intent of an away fighter who was keen to put the spooks up every Irish person in attendance. She was watched keenly by Taylor’s trainer Enamait from his eagle’s nest atop The Port House.
Earlier on, there had been a particular buzz for Gary Cully, the Naas lightweight [16-0, 10KOs] who will face Mexican puncher Jose Feliz [39-6-1, 30KOs] in Saturday’s co-main event. Cully, trained by Katie Taylor’s father Pete, is six-foot-two and fights at 135 pounds, which doesn’t make sense until you watch him.
And watch him Felix did on Wednesday: the Mexican even sarcastically joined in the applause as his opponent saluted the gathered masses. Theirs could be a fun dynamic at today’s press conference.
It’s unlikely that the chief protagonists will have much to say that they haven’t already. They’re staying in separate Dublin hotels as is industry standard for a fight of Saturday’s magnitude. If it were up to them, they probably wouldn’t cross paths again until the first bell rings at around 10pm at the 3Arena.
Elsewhere, an 11-year-old girl from Sandyford will probably face the more pressing questions before the bell rings this morning at St Mary’s National School.
