‘Lawdy, Lawdy.’ Joe Frazier’s old refrain came whispering out of the decades here in Texas. The turf in this vast stadium where the Dallas Cowboys ply their trade is accustomed to bouts of violence but the latest meeting between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano, late on Friday night, served up a sustained and brutal 20 minutes of non-stop close-quarter fighting that was simply of a different nature.
Both fighters went beyond the normal realms of sport here, or the normal human limitations, to inflict physical punishment, to deliver an exhibition in fighting that easily eclipsed anything that the three male bouts could hope to reach. Given that both are figureheads of women’s sport and were fighting in the same ring where the 58-year-old Mike Tyson would make a glowering and much-anticipated return, it was a significant moment.
There must have been 70,000 people here in the stadium in Texas and the audience of hundreds of millions around the world complained bitterly of delays in their live stream. Those who got to watch it live were treated to something unforgettable.
When it was over, the battered fighters stood side by side and heard that all three judges – Jeremy Hayes (Canada), Nate Palmer (Indiana) and Jess Reyes (Texas) – scored the contest 95-94 unanimously. “And still” ... the booing drowned out the confirmation that Katie Taylor had retained her title. Serrano is a graceful competitor and hugged the Irish woman afterwards but her corner team offered a bitterly accusatory comment that Taylor is a dirty fighter who leads with her head.
Feelings were running high, but it was still a nasty allegation to throw at one of the most decorated and respected boxers in the sport. But Taylor was too exhausted, too happy and too proud to care.
“It’s hard to score and fight the fight. I knew it was an absolute war in there,” she said through a swell of boos bouncing around the roofed in stadium.
“Congratulations to Amanda, she’s a fantastic champion. We’ve agreed to 12 three-minute rounds in the next fight, so the triple is on. She’s a hard puncher and a tough warrior, so I was prepared for that. I don’t care what the commentary team or the crowd say, all that matters is the judges around the ring.”
Asked what she thought about the claim that the head clash was deliberate, Serrano didn’t disagree. “I think 100% cos she does it in every fight. It’s not the first fight. She kept headbutting me. But we knew that from the very beginning, from the first fight. That’s what they do. She did it not only in my fight, she did it with Chantelle Cameron.
“Listen, I’m a Boricua. I’m going to die in this ring no matter how many cuts I have in my face. Everyone said the judges was gonna be a little shady but listen, I came here. I chose to be great. I went up three divisions. I dare to be great tonight. I am the featherweight champion of the world and I want to be great.”
The contest was wreathed in greatness. It will become a famous boxing match. By the end, the tied-back hair of both fighters was matted with blood and sweat and their faces were swollen, blood smeared. Taylor had a gash on her left eye while Serrano somehow managed to box through a fountain of blood pouring from the deep welt caused by Taylor’s head.
The Irish woman was docked a point by the referee for headbutting and during a break in round nine, he was heard to warn her: “You better change something.” Going into the final two-minute round of 10, Taylor was told by trainer Ross Enamait to chase it. “You gotta hustle. Everything you got. We need this f***king round, you understand me. And you gotta get it.”
It is hard to know how deeply Taylor had burrowed into herself at this point. Although there were a few Tricolours scattered around the ground, she was on hostile terrain here and once the replays of Taylor’s head clash were replayed on the big screen, the boos rang around the AT&T Stadium. All through her extraordinary fighting life, Taylor has had a large cavalcade of devoted Irish fans. But this was a new frontier in every sense. She was entirely alone.
This was a darker fight than the original meeting between Taylor and Serrano in Madison Square Garden four years ago. That night had an identifiable rhythm and plot line and revolved around Taylor’s depthless courage and conditioning which enabled her to climb out of a hole in round five. This contest became defined by increasing brutality and a kind of wildness that was redolent of the old days of boxing.
From the beginning, Serrano sought to attack and trap while Taylor was elusive and content to pick off shots until a slinging, flailing left hook from Serrano caught her flat-footed and a fleeting, stunned look crossed her face. They were evenly matched for the first half of the fight but after that grotesque cut opened up on Serrano’s face during the fourth-round collision – deepening with the choice jabs Taylor picked off as the fight wore on – both boxers punched and dragged and willed themselves to raise what is an exceptional rivalry on to a higher plane.
It was difficult to watch and impossible to look away. There were several moments when Irish fans must have worried that this would be the night that Taylor finally met a hill she couldn’t summit. In the commentary box, Roy Jones Jr was moved to call the rivalry “the Ali-Frazier of female boxing” and that seemed about right. In round seven alone, they threw 170 punches at each other and 89 landed. And that wasn’t even the most memorable round of the fight. There were a few moments when the thought crossed our minds that this might be it for Taylor but even in the depths of exhaustion, the dazzling hand speed never failed her. The demand for a third encounter with Serrano will be deafening after this.
And it wasn’t until the mega-hyped final bout of the night between Tyson and Jake Paul started that the true, shocking brilliance of what they had just witnessed from Taylor and Serrano began to dawn on the crowd.
An old boxer, however magnetic his dark aura, against a non-boxer could never compare. They were unwilling – and perhaps unable – to seriously lay a glove on one another. It became a parody of an event, won unanimously by Paul on scores of 80-72, 79-73, 79-73, and by the last round, the booing started up again but this time it was because all they had been promised never materialised.
Tyson-Paul was a non-event and it was shown up by following a match that stands as a shocking masterpiece. Boxing has been a male preserve for centuries but on a wild night in Texas, it was the women’s contest between Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano that took it to the rare place where only the greats reside.
