SHE’S DONE IT again.
Katie Taylor dipped into the reserves of her soul once more and she’s now a two-weight undisputed champion of the world.
In this latest extension to the Bray woman’s already extraordinary legacy, Taylor avenged her first and only professional defeat to Chantelle Cameron at the 3Arena, Dublin.
In another female fight for the ages, it was the 37-year-old Taylor who turned back time to earn a majority decision and relieve Cameron of her rule of the light-welterweight (140lb) division, adding all of the Englishwoman’s titles to her completed set down at lightweight (135).
The 10-round war ended with Taylor’s hand raised on judges’ scores of 98-92, 96-94 and 95-95.
The 3Arena remains structurally intact, just about.
This was most impressive entry in Taylor’s endless CV of boxing glories and yet it felt different: for the first time in the 20-odd years since she entered public consciousness, victory for Taylor was legitimately difficult to envision.
The Irish icon had entered her fight with Amanda Serrano 18 months ago as the betting outsider, sure, but only by a tiny margin. Tonight, she was a far heavier underdog against the naturally heavier champion Cameron, in large part because we’d already seen this movie.
But Taylor took a match to that particular script.
The public buy-in to this rematch felt as though it only fully kicked in around Wednesday but the atmosphere on the night itself was never going to be in question.
Everything about the event eclipsed Taylor and Cameron’s first run-in, including the fight itself.
There was almost an urgency with which the 8,000 Irish fans present whipped themselves into a frenzy, each of them aware that at stake in this run-back was not only a portion of Taylor’s legacy but possibly even the preservation of her career.
It had irked Cameron that the challenger had walked to the ring second last time out but there was no debate this time: Taylor duly surfaced from behind the curtain first, strutting out to a Christian pop song, ‘Raise a Hallelujah’ by Bethel Music.
She had previously denied the possibility that her protracted ring-walk back in May might have contributed to her costly flat start. There was to be no arseing around to soak anything in tonight. Taylor made a beeline for the office, no coffee stops.
Rather wonderfully, Cameron followed to the theme tune from ‘The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly’, again the outlaw on Irish soil.
That bled into a dance song which, immediately, was all but drowned out by the frothing crowd, who combined to boo and ‘Olé Olé’ until the music was indiscernible.
That was the end of the fun and games.
Cameron had promised to tear into Taylor from the off and she tried to lead the dance from first bell. In her eagerness, though, the Northampton woman swallowed two tidy Taylor counters. Instantly, the bout had taken on a different tone to its predecessor.
Taylor, whose slow start in that original bout had proven so costly, found herself mostly on the backfoot during the opener and she boxed smartly for the most part.
She did briefly hit the canvas, however, when a Cameron jab budged her off balance, and she was fortunate that referee Roberto Ramirez Jr didn’t rule it a knockdown, soft and all as it might have been.
Cameron enjoyed some better work than that probing jab, catching Taylor with more venom as her challenger retreated from a couple of raids forwards. It was a coin-flip round to kick things off.
Taylor was more aggressive in the second, resembling her old self as she clipped Cameron with a picturesque left hook upstairs. Cameron, again, found success from closer range but a thrilling exchange in the final 10 seconds was probably edged by the home fighter, whose fans greeted it with such noise that neither boxer heard the bell.
Taylor then poured it on Cameron to start to third, by which point the Englishwoman’s nose and forehead were beginning to mark up.
Cameron answered with a thudding combination which forced Taylor back towards her own corner. The champion’s advancement, though, was halted in a clinch from which Cameron emerged with a nasty looking cut, albeit one positioned a safe distance above her left brow.
Plainly annoyed by the unfortunate wound, the Cameron came out swinging in the fourth and shaded the first minute or so. Taylor, though, had the final word with a couple of semi-successful combos upstairs and a stinging, straight right hand to the jaw which pointed Cameron back in the direction of her own corner at the bell.
Taylor was doing a markedly better job of smothering Cameron in close exchanges, negating the more powerful woman’s work in so far as was possible. Cameron, too, was struggling to establish the jab from which she launches so many of her most effective attacks.
The fifth round consisted mostly of that kind of mitigative work by Taylor, albeit Cameron probably banked it through blunt force.
At the halfway mark, 3-2 to either woman would have been a reasonable judgement.
Cameron exploded into the sixth by forcing a couple of right uppercuts through Taylor’s guard in a clinch, punctuating that success with a rasping right hook to the rib cage.
Taylor’s response wasn’t quite so convincing this time, Cameron safely deflecting a couple of flurries and making the home fighter look slightly ragged.
Half a minute into the seventh, Taylor roused her audience once more as she pinged Cameron with a right hook over the top, only for Cameron to reply with something even more forceful.
Taylor, her braids coming loose and her forehead slightly bloodied, seemed to be losing composure. She promptly reset and unleashed a couple of sore combinations which forced Cameron to backtrack, lifting 8,000 bums off seats.
Remarkably, Taylor had probably swung the round back in her own favour.
Cameron certainly won the eighth: for the first time, her relentless attacks forced Taylor into a spot of bother, the Bray woman’s legs creaking beneath her. Smelling blood, Cameron dished out the punishment.
Sensing trouble, Taylor bit back, dropping the round but again finding enough from her gut to warn Cameron — and any remaining doubters — that this wasn’t going to be taken away from her.
Taylor has a remarkable knack for recovering from such troubling rounds and she was duly steadier in the ninth. It was a razor-tight entry and relatively quiet, but Taylor nicked it.
And so it was onto the 10th and final round, which proved looser and louder than the rest.
With the fight’s destiny seemingly still undetermined, Taylor and Cameron let fly at centre-ring. The heavier-handed Cameron landed the more head-bouncing work but it was Taylor who willed her way into the ascendancy as the curtain was lowered on a phenomenal contest.
At the final bell, the Bray woman’s trainer Ross Enamait bounded in from the red corner to meet his boxer, positively jubilant.
Like Enamait, the Irish crowd felt that Taylor had done enough, but Cameron’s corner seemed equally confident that her titles would be coming home to Northampton.
It told its own story, though, that when MC David Diamante relayed the judges’ scores to the 3Arena and uttered those three magic words — “and the NEW” — Cameron graciously applauded while Taylor celebrated like it was 2021 in Madison Square Garden.
The 98-92 card in Taylor’s favour was too wide. The 95-95 card was fine. And 96-94 Taylor felt about right. But it equally felt astonishing that she’d managed to pull it off.
***
The early going at the 3Arena saw the first of two Irish derbies end in the blink of an eye, Galway’s John Cooney (Now 10-0, 3KOs) ridding Dublin’s Liam Gaynor (10-5) of his senses in the first round and draping the Celtic super-featherweight title around his waist.
Then came the turn of Tokyo Olympian Emmet Brennan of Dublin (now 2-0, 1KO), who in just his second pro bout relieved Limerick’s Jamie Morrissey (5-1-1, 1KO) of his Celtic light-heavyweight scrap in the last of their eight scheduled rounds.
The 32-year-old Brennan and Morrissey, 29, stole the freely streamed early portion of the show, earning plenty of new followers from the UK if the online feedback was anything to go by.
The lateness of Brennan’s explosive late victory was remarkable considering he’s spent the majority of his life boxing over the three-round amateur distance. He’ll almost certainly get more business from Eddie Hearn and Matchroom — and Morrissey deserves the same.
Then came a couple of bouts without obvious Irish interest, albeit popular Australian Olympian Skye Nicolson (now 9-0, 1KO), who earned her first career stoppage against Swedish fringe contender Lucy Wildheart in a featherweight scrap, had first cousins from Skerries in attendance.
A bout beforehand, talented Mancunian super-feather Zelfa Barrett (now 30-2, 16KOs), who will be remembered by some readers for a Covid-times victory over Eric Donovan, laboured to a points win over tough Romanian Costin Ion (10-5-2, 5KOs).
The introduction of Dublin heavy Thomas Carty felt like a mercy. With the arena three quarters full, an adrenaline shot came in the form of Carty’s emergence to ‘Grace’, which got Irish blood flowing. So too did Carty’s eighth-round stoppage of English opponent Dan Carber (5-2, 1KO), with the hometown ‘Bomber’ improving his record to 7-0(6KOs)).
That’s twice, now, that Carty has nearly relieved the 3Arena of its roof, and the 28-year-old is building a significant profile both in his hometown and across the country.
The same can be said of Limerick’s Paddy Donovan (now 12-0, 9KOs), who passed a legitimate test of his lofty aspirations in truly spectacular fashion.
The Andy Lee-trained welter was picture-perfect while dispatching highly regarded Englishman Danny Ball (13-2, 6KOs) in just four rounds, wowing a near capacity audience with a huge left-hook knockdown and finishing the job in a blur of speed and spite.
This was a sensational performance by the 24-year-old ‘Real Deal’, who looks equipped to come good on the ring moniker chosen for him by his late friend, heavyweight standout Kevin Sheehy.
Donovan’s victory certainly excited both his promoter Eddie Hearn and coach Lee, the latter of whom implored Matchroom to start thinking about staging a world-title fight on Shannonside.
In the chief-support bout, Naas lightweight Gary Cully hauled his career off the coals, rebounding from his shock first career defeat at the same venue in May to take a split decision over England’s Reece Mould in what was the only bout of the evening to go the distance.
Cully, who parted company with Pete Taylor following that stoppage at the hands of Mexico’s Jose Felix and now trains under Joe McNally in Liverpool, got back on the horse with a careful performance which moved his professional record to 17-1, 10KOs.
Mould (18-2, 6KOs) had his moments but scarcely threatened Cully, whose win was forgettable but whose entrance was again befitting of a main-event fighter.
That one judge awarded the bout to Mould on a score of 97-93 was frankly unbelievable. Thankfully, two others who seemingly actually watched the fight saw it for Cully 97-93 and 96-94, both of which were fair shouts.
In his post-fight interview, Cully stressed to the crowd that Taylor was about to do exactly as he had, and right the wrongs of May.
It was difficult to believe him.
He was bang-on.
