Katie Taylor: Beyond The Ropes

Katie Taylor: Beyond The Ropes

Retirement is normally beaten into you. Usually, repeatedly. Fighters can always find an excuse. They know it’s over. But their pride, ego even, refuses to let them admit it.

Kell Brook was apparently one of the lucky ones. That long-awaited fight with Amir Khan was years in the making. It finally happened in 2022. Brook stopped his long-time domestic rival and promptly walked away into retirement. It seemed like the perfect ending. It was. Brook is now 40 and is talking about fighting again. If the money is there, he will.

History tells us retirement is hard. Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran, and many more legends of our sport refused to accept their time had passed. Some paid an incredibly high price for that delusion. Their story is the majority. The likes of Lennox Lewis and Joe Calzaghe are very much in the minority.

Even when you sense a fighter is done, you always think at some point, they will be back.

Katie Taylor had her perfect fairytale ending last Saturday night. At a sold-out Croke Park, 83,000 fans cheered her every punch. Flora Pili had the impossible task of being the supporting act in the final twenty minutes of that truly fabulous career. Pili played her part. In many ways, she was the perfect dance partner. Taylor retired on a quite wonderful high. On her terms. There was no sad final fight when the signs of decay were clearly visible. No humiliating, painful defeat. Taylor didn’t deserve to go out like that. She deserved to go out on a win at Croke Park. A moment that she undoubtedly has earned.

Taylor has always been different. In truth, she had to be. Taylor will be different again. You know this really is the end. There is nothing left to prove. One of the very few fighters who could honestly say that they have completed boxing. Nothing can top that final dance. We just know Katie Taylor won’t be back.

Maybe now Taylor can look back and truly appreciate what she has achieved. In the amateur ranks, Taylor won a gold medal at the 2012 Olympics. A five-time world amateur champion. As a professional, she was a two-weight undisputed champion of the world. Her resume includes three wins over Amanda Serrano. It also includes wins over Delfine Persoon, Natasha Jonas, Jessica McCaskill, and Chantelle Cameron. Only Cameron beat her in 27 professional fights. A 2023 defeat that was swiftly avenged just six months later.

It’s not just the wins; it’s the importance of Katie Taylor to her side of the sport. She was instrumental in getting women’s boxing into the London Olympics. When Taylor turned professional in 2016, there wasn’t really a scene. But when she did, there was. Headlining at Madison Square Garden. Drawing 83,000 fans to Croke Park. Just getting to fight there shouldn’t be forgotten. If you did a top ten of the greatest female fights of the modern era, Taylor could legitimately fill half of the places on that list. In many ways, Taylor can fight.

Taylor has proved that fact so many times in her career, none more so than on that historical night against Amanda Serrano in 2022. A sold-out Madison Square Garden. A pivotal night for women’s boxing. “That was a huge pressure moment,” Taylor said of that fight. “We just had to perform.” And they did.

Katie Taylor can walk away with her head held high. A career that is unprecedented and full of so many incredible highs. In a sport that is now very much in the niche bracket, Taylor became a mainstream fighter. They said women’s boxing couldn’t sell; the 40-year-old undoubtedly changed that perception.

The hope is that her vast body of work doesn’t go to waste. The sport needs to build on what she has achieved. Taylor has paved the way; we now need to find a way to keep moving forward. Hopefully, Taylor can play some small part in that. Her voice is an important one. It shouldn’t be lost.

“I am blessed to have had such a strong impact on the sport that I can inspire the next generation,” Taylor told me a few months ago. That next generation will need the platform to be allowed to flourish. Can the female side of the sport retain its momentum without Katie Taylor? In simple terms, it must. We owe Katie Taylor that. And so much more.

Photo Credit: Mark Robinson/Matchroom Boxing