Chantelle Cameron: “I’m the only person to have a win over Katie, and we still haven’t settled who the better fighter is.”

Chantelle Cameron: “I’m the only person to have a win over Katie, and we still haven’t settled who the better fighter is.”

It does seem a pivotal few days for the careers of Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano, and Chantelle Cameron. Taylor, the undisputed world super-lightweight champion, will undoubtedly fight one of her great rivals next. The only question is which one?

At the WBC convention in Hamburg late last year, Eddie Hearn said the preferred option for Taylor was a trilogy with Amanda Serrano and requested time to finalise a deal for a third fight with the Puerto Rican. The WBC granted that time and gave all parties until the 31st January to close the deal.

Hearn has said that ‘early negotiations’ are now ongoing with MVP Promotions with Croke Park in Ireland and Las Vegas as the possible locations for the Taylor/Serrano trilogy. But with only a few days remaining before that end-of-January deadline, an immediate deal seems unlikely if they are indeed only at the preliminary stages of those negotiations.

If no deal is reached by the 31st January, the WBC could grant an extension to those talks or they could force Taylor and her inner circle into a decision to either fight Cameron, who is the WBC mandatory challenger to Taylor, or vacate the WBC bauble.

Worryingly for Cameron, the WBC has been overly lenient with Taylor previously. Only recently did Taylor vacate her WBC world lightweight title despite not defending that belt for over two years. Taylor last defended that title in a dominant win over the Argentinian Karen Elizabeth Carabajal in October 2022. Taylor only vacated that title in December. If boxing works the way it should, lessons should be learned and that shouldn’t be allowed to happen again. Cameron will certainly hope that history doesn’t repeat itself. It shouldn’t.

Cameron, the only fighter to defeat Taylor as a professional, has made no secret of her desire to fight Taylor again.

“I know I can and will beat Katie Taylor again, especially now as I’m the fighter coming off the loss, and now I am the one chasing revenge,” Cameron told me not long after suffering her first professional defeat in her rematch with Taylor in 2023. Two iconic nights. Two truly incredible fights. It does seem to be the rivalry that has more of the look of unfinished business. One that is more deserving of a final chapter.

Their personal rivalry is currently tied at one win apiece, and money aside, it does seem to be the more logical and more meaningful of the two options for Taylor’s next fight. Serrano has lost both of her fights to Taylor, albeit by somewhat controversial decisions in each of their fights. This observer had Taylor winning the first fight without any real controversy and saw the return as one that could legitimately have gone either way. A close fight is exactly that. The word controversial does seem to be convenient wording when a certain narrative is being pushed. Taylor and Serrano could fight five times and every single fight could be decided by wafer-thin margins. You have to stop somewhere. Or at the very least, let them go their separate ways for a brief time, allowing other fighters their opportunity, before meeting again further down the line.

For many reasons, Serrano is understandably chasing a third fight with Taylor, but at 0-2 in the series, in a logical sense, where does it end? Does a Serrano victory in any third fight then give way to another fight? Serrano also has obligations at featherweight. The Puerto Rican hasn’t defended her world featherweight titles since October 2023. Taylor, of course, has that third fight with Cameron still more than lingering. Both have more ‘pressing’ matters elsewhere.

Cameron is currently in limbo waiting for fight news. While there was talk of a fight with Holly Holm doing the rounds last week, the number one target for Cameron is Katie Taylor.

“I know Amanda is the money fight, but is it now about money or legacy,” Cameron recently told me. “I’m the only person to have a win over Katie, and we still haven’t settled who the better fighter is. But is it more about chasing the money now or finishing such a magnificent career avoiding the trilogy with me because she is scared to lose again.”

Chantelle Cameron will be hoping that the politics of the sport don’t deny her that third meeting with Katie Taylor.

Photo Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing