Katie Taylor had tears in her eyes as she walked to the Garden ring for one last time on Saturday night in New York.
After ten rounds of perfection in front of 19,721 avid fans, she still had tears in her eyes as her hand was raised to end an unforgettable chapter in her remarkable life. It was her trilogy fight against Amanda Serrano; Taylor led by two wins to zero, but every second of every round had been fierce. Taylor’s four world title belts were also a bounty, but nobody talked of such trivial things.
On Saturday night, Taylor owned every inch of that hallowed canvas, every moment of an unexpected fight and, at times, Serrano looked lost and lonely.
“She needs me to stand in front of her, she needs me to stand and fight,” Taylor said in her dressing room late, late at night.
It was clear that Serrano knew victory was beyond her on a night created for her revenge; Taylor refused to be bullied, refused to surrender her emotions and fight the savage brawl Serrano needed.
It was not the fight the promotion expected and wanted, but it was the fight that Taylor needed to finish the trilogy three-zero and move away from any distant cries of robbery.
Taylor was flawless and Serrano never had a single answer to the boxing lesson she was receiving. There was nothing wrong with Serrano’s performance, she simply had no alternative plan, no way of solving Taylor’s gentle skills.
When it was done and the two boxers were buried under hugs, the scores were read: Taylor with two scores of 97-93, which means she won seven of the ten rounds, and a drawn verdict by the British judge, Mark Lyson. Serrano never complained, she knew she had been beaten, outclassed by a version of Taylor very few expected at her current age.
The broadcast team, not surprisingly, witnessed an alternative fight and there were whispers at ringside that they had Serrano in front by a few rounds. They were not the first and they will not be the last broadcast team to read a fight incorrectly; it happens like a hidden virus, first one person goes down with it and then, after five rounds, everybody has the virus, and everybody is reading the fight wrong.
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The harsh realities of the midnight fight are that Serrano looked slow on the night, and it also looked like the pressure and expectation had finally got to her; Taylor and Serrano III was far more than a closing trilogy fight, far more than just another night for the Taylor files. Serrano was in place for revenge, that was the narrative, that was the slightly sickening feeling all week. There was a sense of dread, a sense that Serrano would win at all costs. Taylor removed the darkness of any wayward theories with simplicity, poise and accuracy. Katie knew what to do.
Taylor took expectation out of the fight and fought like a dream during ten rounds of composed, skilled boxing. It was not the war Serrano wanted and needed, but it was a masterclass in the ancient art of self-defence, which is also known as boxing; Serrano needed it to be raw fighting. There was still drama; the crowd made sure of that and created a carnival atmosphere inside the ancient big room at Madison Square Garden.
There was a real sense of history all week, a sense that Taylor and Serrano would leave something behind in the Garden ring for the ages. They had set records back in the same ring in April of 2022 when they first met; first women to top the bill at Madison Square, biggest gate for women, both boxers cleared a million. On Saturday night, they smashed all their previous records and the Garden’s slopes – it feels that way when the venue is packed to capacity – were swaying under a canopy of fluttering flags of appreciation and devotion.
At the end, well after midnight, I made my way through the back passages to Taylor’s dressing room. It was a scene of utter joy. There had been more tears, hugs, kisses and screams. The little girl from Bray had silenced the night with a performance of pure brilliance. She had just a tiny mark or two on her face. And there was the smile.
I also noticed on the wall, over her shoulder, a photograph of Frank Sinatra, the king of the city, holding a camera and leaning over a boxing canvas. It was a direct link with the Garden’s greatest ever night of boxing; it was Sinatra working for Life magazine at the Fight of the Century on March 8, 1971. That was night Joe Frazier beat Muhammad Ali over 15 rounds to launch the seventies and make the Garden the spiritual home of boxing.
Taylor, Sinatra, the canvas at the Garden, Ali and Frazier – that is the very definition of walking in the footsteps of giants. Katie Taylor is a giant – she might be back, she might not.
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