KATIE TAYLOR BRIEFLY checks herself when she hears the following words leave her mouth:
“I don’t think a loss is that big of a deal.”
Taylor, one of the most driven and prolific winners in the history of Irish sport, quickly clarifies: “I mean . . . Even after the Rio Olympics loss, for example, you’re so heartbroken, you’re disappointed, but you get up and get on with things and you just focus on the next fight.
“I wouldn’t say I wallow in self-pity too much,” smiles Taylor [22-1, 6KOs], two weeks out from her chance to avenge her first professional defeat to Chantelle Cameron [18-0, 8KOs] at Dublin’s 3Arena. “Get up and get on with things,” she reiterates.
“And the day after the (Cameron) fight, I was surrounded by my family, surrounded by people where I would have done the same thing if I was celebrating a win.
“I have to learn from the defeat, I have to adapt, and I was excited at the prospect of having a rematch coming up. So, I wouldn’t say that I had to sit down and sit down and evaluate the loss too much.
“I obviously prepare for every fight meticulously,” Taylor stresses. “I don’t just step into the ring and see what happens. We look at tapes and video footage. I’m prepared for whatever comes my way.
But it’s not like I’m sitting down thinking of the last fight every minute of every day. I know what I need to change about the next performance, I know what I need to do. The last fight doesn’t consume me.
The aftermath of her defeat to Cameron was made fractionally easier by Taylor’s rematch clause, for sure: the undisputed lightweight champion — who still holds those belts at 135 pounds — was secure in the knowledge that she and her light-welterweight (140lb) equivalent were contractually mandated to meet again in the event that Taylor lost.
It also helped that, in contrast to Taylor’s last defeat in the boxing ring — her Rio 2016 exit at the hands of Finland’s Mira Potkonen — there was no disputing that the right woman had her hand raised.
Taylor and Cameron’s initial barnburner in May was a far closer fight than Taylor has been given credit for in the time since. But the two judges’ scores of 96-94 in Cameron’s favour were bang-on, and the 95-95 score from the third judge was harsh on the Englishwoman.
Taylor was able to make peace with this reality once she heard it from her family and her team the following day. And so she got up and got on with it. She was back in training in Ireland the following week, chatting back and forth with her trainer Ross Enamait before jetting back towards her adopted home of Vernon, Connecticut.
A lot of Taylor’s sequel with Cameron on 25 November is a rinse-and-repeat job. Taylor will again move up in weight to challenge ‘Il Capo”s unequivocal rule of the light-welterweight division. Cameron is still the bigger, stronger, younger, fresher fighter. Despite Taylor’s defeat the first time around, the boxers will meet once more in Dublin, where Taylor’s pulling power dictates that all parties — including promoters Matchroom — will earn a lot more money than if the rematch was staged in Cameron’s hometown of Northampton or anywhere else in the UK.
So, what’s different this time around?
“The preparation”, for starters, according to the challenger.
“I feel a lot better going into this fight,” Taylor says. “I feel in top form right now. I’m just looking forward to showing my best on the actual night.
“I think everyone could see that I definitely wasn’t at my best in the last fight. I feel like this camp has been very, very different.”
Asked if she wouldn’t mind elaborating, Taylor responds: “I don’t think I should really expand on it.
“I could just feel it myself going into the fight. I was good enough to step into the ring that night but I just fell a bit short on the actual night.
It was just a flat performance and I don’t need to talk about things too much in detail but I certainly wasn’t myself on the night and I think everyone who saw the fight could see that.
“But all credit to Chantelle,” Taylor adds. “She did her job and there’s nothing I can do about that.
I just can’t afford to have flat nights at this stage. Every fight is a tough fight. So, I take responsibility for that.
“But I have a chance to make things right again and I’m very, very grateful that I have this rematch.
“Mentally and physically, I feel a lot better going into this one and that’s obviously a big deal.”
Taylor does dismiss off-hand one of the theories posited by disappointed fans in an attempt to explain her relatively laboured start against Cameron the first time around: no, it had nothing to do with her protracted ring-walk or ‘the occasion.’
The 37-year-old Bray woman concedes that she grew “emotional” when she was greeted by a deafening wall of noise as she first emerged on the 3Arena stage and that “you can never really prepare for that kind of atmosphere”, but she maintains that it had zero effect on her performance.
Taylor adds: “I think the emotion was from the fact that [I was thinking], ‘I can’t believe this is happening.’ Because there was a time when I didn’t think I was going to be able to fight in Ireland, in my own country. So, it was just that emotion of, ‘This is actually happening, now. This is really happening.’ I think I just had a heart of gratitude, really.
“Certainly, my emotions are going to be a bit more intact the next time”, she laughs, “but yeah, I was just thinking, ‘A couple of years ago, I never thought this was going to happen. Here we are, bringing big-time boxing to my nation.’ And it was just an amazing night.”
While emotions will still doubtless run fairly high in a fortnight’s time, there remains no real animosity towards Cameron the second time around.
The unbeaten Englishwoman hasn’t been shy in celebrating her victory over Taylor in May and nor should she be; she voluntarily took on one of the most daunting away trips in world boxing and inflicted a first professional defeat on an icon of the sport. She has every right to rub our noses in it.
Taylor says she wasn’t even aware of the photograph that Cameron posted to social media from Dublin Airport in which she pulled a shrug pose next to an enlarged poster of the Irish sporting hero whom she had beaten a night earlier.
It’s water off a duck’s back — although the duck’s legs are surely kicking like mad under the surface.
“I’m definitely looking forward to . . . just revenge, I guess, and making things right,” Taylor says. “A lot of people, I think, are doubting me as well, so I actually love going into these kinds of fights when people are actually doubting me.
“I think you’re always . . . the second half of the Chantelle fight, I was able to adapt and I think I won the second half of the fight and I can take that into this rematch as well. You do learn from those 10 rounds. And I certainly think I am better prepared going into this fight.
“I do love the rematches,” adds Taylor, who became a clearer winner over one her previous nemeses, Delfine Persoon, in their 2020 re-run.
“I think I always do come back better from fighting these girls the first time. I always seem to come back the better fighter the second time around.”
