On Saturday night, Katie Taylor bids farewell to boxing on what is sure to be an emotional evening in Dublin.
The Irish icon, 40, will finally get to realise her dream of fighting at the iconic Croke Park, and she will do so in a main-event clash with Flora Pili.
For Taylor, the fight represents a chance to become a three-time undisputed champion. The Olympic gold medalist previously held undisputed gold at lightweight and super-lightweight, and it’s in the latter division that she will meet Pili this weekend.
Taylor (25-1, 6 KOs) will carry the IBF, WBO and WBA belts into the famous stadium, where a sold-out crowd of 80,000 will watch on, while the vacant WBC title is also up for grabs.
Pili, 29, will bring her own belt into the fight – the IBO strap – although that version of the world title is not always granted the same prestige as the other belts.
In any case, Pili will also enter this fight with an unbeaten record (12-0, 2 KOs), as she looks to pull off the upset in front of Taylor’s home crowd.
Does the French boxer stand a chance, though? Betway has her listed as a huge underdog at 10/1, while Taylor is 1/20, and the draw is 20/1.
Silvia Bortot is perhaps the only name of real note on Pili’s resume; in 2023, Pili won a split decision against the Italian, who has fought world champions Lauren Price and Mikaela Mayer in the last three years – losing to both on points.
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Still, Saturday’s main event feels like it is less about the result and more about celebrating Taylor, who is widely deemed the greatest women’s boxer of all time.
Fighting at Croke Park remains the only major accolade left for Taylor to tick off, after she twice headlined against fellow great Amanda Serrano at New York City’s iconic Madison Square Garden.
Taylor’s first fight with Serrano even brought the first seven-figure paydays in the history of women’s boxing, while their middle bout – on the undercard of Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul in Texas – broke viewership records by reaching 50m households on Netflix.
Taylor’s promoter Eddie Hearn said this week: “If Croker would have originally gone, ‘Yes, this is going to be massive,’ I would have gone, ‘wow’, and we would have done it. But it was like: ‘I don’t know.’ Blimey, if they’re not sure, do we really want to be gambling with these costs?
“People can deflate your spirit, which is quite unusual for me, but they did deflate my spirit a little bit over the years, because they made me question whether we could do it or if it would actually work.
“And I’m disappointed in myself, actually, that I allowed that to happen, because maybe we could have done it earlier. But then I didn’t have the confidence that I had going into it this time with [Irish promoter] Peter Aiken involved and the three Amanda Serrano fights [behind us].
“Croker helped out as well and they were fantastic in the end. But I never thought we’d do 40,000 tickets on a pre-sale. How many could we have done? I don’t know, maybe another 40,000, 50,000, 100,000?”
