Amanda Serrano Pulls Out Of Bout Against Katie Taylor
When Matchroom Boxing announced on March 6 that Women’s undisputed World Lightweight champion Katie Taylor’s (15-0, 6 KOs) next fight would be against WBO/WBC “Interim” World Featherweight Champion Amanda Serrano (38-1-1, 28 KOs) in May, fans were amped and excited at the prospect of watching two of the Top 5 fighters in Women’s boxing square off.
The bout was initially postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Yet, the anticipation was still high because people figured the fight would be rescheduled once the sport was allowed to resume.
TWO STEPS BACK
Unfortunately, word has now come down that Taylor – Serrano will not happen. Serrano has decided to opt-out of the fight. Jordan Maldonado, her manager and trainer, sent out a press release on June 19 detailing his fighter’s rationale.
“On four occasions, Amanda has signed on for the fight. She signed to fight in late 2019 in New York, but Taylor opted to move up in weight. Then we accepted the fight for early 2020 in the same city, but Taylor’s team thought they needed more time to train and it was moved to May 2 in England. But then a month and a half later, the COVID-19 pandemic came and it was moved to the fourth of July; all this, accepting a purse not up to par with the magnitude of the fight.
But since Amanda wants to make history for Puerto Rico, we happily accepted. Now they’re offering us the fight for August but removing almost 50% of Amanda’s purse.
However, they are taking less from Taylor. We understand there is a situation around the world with COVID-19 and there are changes in the boxing platform, but big fights are big fights.
Many important fights are delayed until fans can come back to attend the events. If we accept this new offer, we’d be creating a new negative precedent in female boxing, after so many women have worked so hard to heighten the level of the sport.”
OTHER OPPORTUNITIES
Maldonado went on to note that Serrano’s contract with her current promoter, Lou DiBella is soon to expire. He hopes that DiBella and all parties involved can do their job and make this fight happen.
Emphasizing they still want the fight with Taylor, the manager/trainer said they’re willing to wait. As he explained, as a current world champion in the featherweight division, Serrano has unification opportunities in the meantime.
While there’s been no reaction from Matchroom Boxing or any of Taylor’s representatives, DiBella reached out to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated and DAZN to dispute Maldonado’s claim that Serrano’s current offer to fight Taylor was cut in half.
The bottom line is, this is a big disappointment on all fronts. This was going to be arguably the biggest fight in the history of women’s boxing. And for the time being, it’s gone awry due to the old bugaboo of boxing business and money.
Here’s hoping that the issues can be resolved behind the scenes and this women’s boxing super-fight finally takes place. Stay tuned to 3KingsBoxing for this fluid and evolving story for further details.
By: Michael Wilson Jr.
