By Eóin Kennedy
Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano repeated the trick from New York two years ago and brought the house down again, this time in Arlington, last Friday. Taylor won again and the fight is shrouded in controversy due to the nasty cut Serrano endured at the hands of Taylor’s head. It was a cut caused by a clash of heads and there’s no doubt that Taylor has a style where she dips down as she comes towards her opponent to launch an attack, that’s not that uncommon in boxing, but the Netflix commentary team would have had you believe that Taylor was relentlessly charging at Serrano like a rhino. The most trotted out cliché in boxing is ‘styles make fights’ and it’s true, but, styles can also ruin fights. Serrano is a southpaw which is a stance that quite often lends itself to messy fights against orthodox fighters. Yes, heads went awry in the rematch on Friday but at least these two women have given us two instantly iconic boxing matches already. Many southpaws vs orthodox fights end up being absolute stinkers due to the lack of stylistic chemistry, this has not been the case between Taylor and Serrano.
The fights being considered classics will be little solace to Serrano and she has every right to be annoyed that a clash of heads caused the cut but the repeated inference from the commentary team that Taylor was intentionally headbutting and their inability to see when Taylor was having success and winning some rounds fighting off the back foot was infuriating, and disrespectful to the reigning undisputed world champion. What also came across as disrespectful to Taylor was Serrano’s coach, Jordan Maldonado, giving an in-ring interview after the fight claiming that Taylor was a repeat offender of head butts throughout her career. Maldonado referenced that Serrano has only picked up two cuts during the course of her fifty-one fight professional boxing career, one sustained in each of her fights with Taylor. While nobody is disputing this fact, it also doesn’t make Taylor a cheat. Credit is due to Maldonado though as he did reference the quality of Taylor’s character outside the ring and was obviously in a heightened sense of emotion right after Serrano had just fought.
Credit is also due to Taylor’s team for having her back in the lion’s den of Texas which seemed much more like Serrano country, especially compared with the feeling of equal support back in New York. New York City has both massive Irish and Puerto Rican populations so both fighters felt like they had an even split of supporters in Madison Square Garden, but the southern states of America aren’t as densely populated with Irish people as the Northeast of the country, while the Latin community in Arlington is huge and they were vocal in their support of Serrano on Friday. This felt like an away fight for Taylor and after she was declared the winner and headed to complete the obligatory post-fight press conference, she was met with more disrespect.
As Taylor and her team approached the media room, they were told that Eddie Hearn was not allowed on stage due to restrictions on the number of people. Taylor’s manager Brian Peters nipped that incident in the bud and insisted it was three people on stage or zero and the MVP promotions representatives retreated. Fair play to Hearn, Taylor’s usual promoter, and Peter’s for fighting her corner during some tense moments in Arlington, but it feels like a such a renowned and respected figure in boxing shouldn’t need to have her corner fought for her at this point of her career. Katie Taylor deserves more respect than arguing over whether she can have one more person on stage at the press conference. In all actuality the whole dispute was probably related to Hearn and Serrano’s promoter, the infamous Jake Paul, having some beef, with Hearn even suing Paul over some accusatory statements about bribing judges. Hearn wouldn’t have been a popular man among the MVP staff on Friday and while the Matchroom Chairman has demonstrated many times that he’s very comfortable among company that hates him, it still would have been easy for him not to play such an active role given he wasn’t the event promoter but he was an important figure in Taylor’s corner on the night. Hearn is now a tycoon in the world of boxing. There’s only a handful of powerful boxing promoters globally and he’s one of them and definitely the most braggadocious to boot. His presence in Arlington may have just reminded people at ringside that yes, Katie Taylor was the away fighter, but that she was still running with one of the powerhouses of boxing, so no funny business. You just never know with boxing.
As far for Amanda Serrano herself, she is a class act and none of these gripes about ill treatment of Taylor are directed towards her. Serrano was brutally unlucky to get cut the way she did but her strength and resolve to get through the remainder of the fight will be remembered as nothing short of legendary. That cut was gruesome and in a very dangerous place near her eye and I actually feel the referee should have saved her from herself and stopped the fight in round 7. But he didn’t and true to her Puerto Rican fighting spirit she battled to the very end. It feels unfair that Serrano is 2-0 down against Taylor after such close fights, but close fights don’t mean robberies. Remember Devin Haney-Vasiliy Lomachenko? Remember Oleksandr Usyk vs Tyson Fury? Close fights don’t mean that one fighter gets screwed on the cards and just because Rosie Perez says on Netflix commentary that Serrano is winning every round doesn’t mean it’s happening.
In fairness to Rosie she did acknowledge on Twitter(X) that her own emotions were running high, and that Katie doesn’t deserve the disrespect she’s getting online. No shade intended towards Rosie, she’s a great entertainer and was fun on commentary but maybe if they have the trilogy fight, an Irish commentator in the booth alongside Perez would add balance. The two could bounce off one another which could be enjoyable and in-fitting with what Netflix are probably going for. Andy Lee is a regular on the mic with DAZN and would be a good addition to the booth, or Spike O’Sullivan could be a quick-witted option. Either way, let’s hope we do get the trilogy fight. Outside all of the pettiness regarding respect or lack thereof, the most important thing to remember is that Taylor-Serrano is well on it’s way to joining rivalries like Barrera-Morales, Gatti-Ward, Pacquiao-Marquez and others in the boxing pantheon. Let’s hope the supporting cast in this story can stay as classy as the fighters until the end.