Katie Taylor insists that she has plenty more fights left in her as she gears up for the biggest contest of her professional career.
The 36-year-old fights in Ireland for the first time as a professional this evening when she takes on undisputed Super-Lightweight queen Chantelle Cameron at a sold-out 3Arena.
With 22 fights and victories already to her name, Taylor is closer to the end of her career than the beginning. And while she claims she will be comfortable in retirement, she believes that day isn’t coming any time soon.
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“I’m not worried about retirement that’s for sure,” said Taylor, “I think once I hang up the gloves you won’t see me coming back out of retirement again. I’ll be sailing off into the sunset and you will probably never see me again
“But I definitely do have a few more fights left in me yet. I’m still so passionate about this sport. I love the process of the training camp. I just love everything about it right now.
“I take it one fight at a time and one year at a time.”
While Taylor has a rematch clause for tonight’s fight, another opponent that makes sense is Amanda Serrano. The pair squared off in a legendary bout at Madison Square Garden last year and were due to clash again this evening before an injury ruled Serrano out of the contest.
The Puerto Rican sensation has since signed on to fight Heather Hardy on the undercard of Jake Paul v Nate Diaz in Texas at the end of the Summer. Taylor believes a rematch with Serrano is still a possibility, but suggests the onus is on Serrano to get the ball rolling.
“That’s down to her. If she wants the rematch she knows where I am I guess.”
With the Featherweight supremo pushed to the back of her mind, the 2012 Olympic champion’s sole focus is on the formidable task at hand.
Taylor is stepping up in weight to take on Northampton native Cameron for her undisputed Super-Lightweight title. Both fighters weighed in at 139.7 lbs on Friday, comfortably inside the 140 lbs limit.
That weight makes Cameron the heaviest opponent Taylor has ever faced. It is also the heaviest Taylor herself has ever weighed for a professional fight.
Such a prospect could be daunting for most fighters. But Katie isn’t like most fighters. She’s spent her entire career sparring with male fighters, virtually all of whom outweighed her by a considerable amount, and she is hoping this experience will help her against the heavy-handed champion.
“I don’t think there’s that many girls around the world that have had the quality of sparring over the years.
“Some of the spars I’ve had in certain training camps like in Ukraine and Russia, you step into the ring with International boxers and they’re trying to take my head off.
“Those spars are great for your development. You go into those spars a small bit nervous as well. You have to be sharp, you have to be alert and those sorts of spars are crucial.”
When she decided to turn professional all those years ago, Taylor was hailed as a potential Vasiliy Lomachenko-type figure for women’s boxing.
The two Olympic champions have shared parallels for years and will do so again this weekend when both take on younger, hungry fighters eager to take down wily veterans.
Taylor will be tuning into Lomachenko’s fight in the early hours of Sunday morning. Win, lose, or draw.
Or, as she puts it, “win.”
Saturday promises to be a special night in the history of both Taylor’s career and Irish boxing as a whole. She should have fought in Ireland years ago as a professional, but the 2016 Regency attack and the nationwide boxing embargo put a delay on such dreams.
Had she not fought in Ireland, Taylor claims her career would have been “Unfinished.” But perhaps the long wait makes this evening even more special.
“I’m very proud to bring big-time boxing back. I think a few years ago, I didn’t think this was ever going to happen.
“Here we are, how many years later headlining a huge show again. Myself and Chantelle are going to be at the centre of the boxing World again on Saturday evening. It’s pretty amazing.
“I think I would have felt that there was unfinished business, it would have been an awful shame had I retired and not had the chance to fight at home.
“But it’s better late than never I suppose.”
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