Boxing gyms, renowned for their simplicity, often double as shrines to the elite. In Las Vegas, banners for The Money Team hang under a wall of fight posters at the Mayweather Boxing Club, an unsubtle acknowledgement of Floyd Mayweather’s achievements. Wild Card officially belongs to Freddie Roach, but even the Hall of Fame trainer will concede that it’s the House That Manny Pacquiao Built, with pictures of a triumphant Pacquiao wallpapering Roach’s Hollywood club.
Katie Taylor is the biggest name in women’s boxing, the undisputed champion at 135 pounds, No. 1 pound-for-pound, a box office draw from New York to London. She trains in a nondescript brick building in central Connecticut, beneath a wall-sized mural of “Marvelous” Mykquan Williams, a fringe 140-pound prospect, and opposite a sign inviting fans to a meet-and-greet with even fringier former featherweight Matt Remillard. Evidence of Taylor’s presence is nonexistent. “It would be nice to have one picture,” says Taylor, laughing. “But I’m happy here.”
Taylor, 35, doesn’t need the attention. Doesn’t want it. Hates it, really. Has already had it. There’s the good, the flowery coverage of Taylor’s improbable rise, the daughter of a light heavyweight who fought her way out of an impoverished neighborhood in Ireland to win gold in the 2012 Olympics. And the bad, the split from her father, who doubled as her trainer, that made the intensely private Taylor deeply uncomfortable. An anonymous existence in New England just . . . fits. “Her hobbies are training and shopping on Amazon for training gear,” says Ross Enamait, her trainer. “This environment just suits her.”
