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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Sport
Tess Crain

When women fight: Taylor v Serrano and the meaning of choice in the ring

Amanda Serrano, left, and Katie Taylor, right, trade blows during their undisputed junior welterweight title fight on Friday night.
Amanda Serrano, left, and Katie Taylor, right, trade blows during their undisputed junior welterweight title fight on Friday night. Photograph: Al Bello/Getty Images for Netflix

There are two salient pictures of the Katie Taylor–Amanda Serrano trilogy: Taylor walking to the ring on Friday night under the green, orange and white bars of light, her neck like a tree trunk, eyes fixed ahead with stoic grandeur as Even Though I Walk played overhead – and the image, hours earlier, of Yulihan Luna bloodied and bruised, standing beside a ring girl whose hoisted breasts had been shellacked in oil, smiling rigidly at a camera that wasn’t looking at the fighter.

That’s boxing. That’s also being a woman.

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