Katie Taylor v Amanda Serrano Fight Official Off
After a great deal of upheaval, confusion and crossfire bickering, the would-be mega fight between undisputed lightweight champion Katie Taylor (15-0, 6 KO’s) and interim WBC/WBO world featherweight champion Amanda “The Real Deal” Serrano (38-1-1, 28 KO’s) is now officially off.
As reported by DiBella Entertainment promoter Lou DiBella to SecondsOuts, due to issues that arose in restructuring the prizefight under post-COVID-19 protocols, The Real Deal could not bring herself to take the bout. Even though she was going to be provided her originally promised wages, the seven-division champion could not move forward in good conscious without having access to consistent sparring, among a host of other rationales.
“Look, I tried hard to get Amanda to go because I felt the money was so significant for women’s boxing that it might not be there later. And I really wanted to encourage her to take it, but then when they came back to me, and I am hearing the same thing from all my athletes.”
“My athletes, who are fighting on ESPN, are putting up good fights but for the most part my fighters are East Coast fighters and their boxing gyms are not open. They’re not able to spar and they’re not able to adequately prepare for a fight.”
“So to tell Amanda Serrano you’ve trained twice for no reason, now there is a third fight August 22, I think it’s reasonable for her to say, ‘I can’t spar, I’m not going to be at my competitive best and I am worried about flying nine hours intercontinental-ly, when there is an EU travel ban and COVID is raging in the United States.”
SOUR GRAPES
Sadly, if the August 22 prizefight does not take place, DiBella has relayed a message from Eddie Hearn vowing to hold a longstanding grudge.
“Well Eddie’s told me, I don’t know if he is going to stand by this, Eddie’s told me that if it doesn’t happen on August 22, Katie will never fight Amanda again for the rest of her life. But if that’s the position that they want to take, it’s not like it’s going to kill Amanda. She’s a seven-time world champion, she is one of the top pound for pound women in the world. If they want to take that position, that’s their position.”
“By the way, both Katie and Amanda were in the United States, why didn’t they arrange to fight here? And also, there is a big difference between the Manchester Arena and agreeing to go to Europe and in the backyard of your opponent’s promoter, there’s just a difference! I don’t understand how a bunch of the fan boys and girls in the UK don’t get that.”
“You know there are different points of views and it doesn’t mean that one person is wrong and the other person is right. I think that, particularly in these times, you’ve got to respect points of views that differ from your own.”
So even though it’s a dreary conclusion for fight fans, after all the haggling, this super fight appears to be dead in the water.
By: Bakari Simpson
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