The 42 Reports from Madison Square Garden

THE RIVALRY HAS been put to bed. 3-0. That’s all she wrote.

Katie Taylor rubber-stamped her superiority over career nemesis Amanda Serrano with a tense but deserved majority-decision victory at Madison Square Garden, defending her undisputed light-welterweight title in the process.

For the first time in their series, Serrano accepted her defeat graciously for there was simply nothing left to complain about.

Two judges scored the bout 97-93 — or seven rounds to three — in the Irishwoman’s favour, with a third seeing it even at five rounds apiece.

But her and Serrano’s most tactical battle was won cleanly by Taylor, sending the Irish contingent at MSG ballistic in scenes reminiscent of the night that began one of boxing’s great modern sagas at the same venue three years ago.

Asked in the ring afterwards if she intended to box again in future, the jubilant Taylor was for the very first time non-committal.

This one might just do it. The final itch scratched. With her most worthy rival banished, it’ll be difficult to recreate another night like Friday in New York, and it’ll be difficult to get out of bed for any less.

It could be days before Taylor’s supporters see their own beds. The tricoloured celebrations will spread from Pennsylvania Plaza through wider Manhattan in the coming hours.

Serrano’s star has risen enough since 2022 that her supporters outnumbered the Irish in a subversion of the original classic.

It will feel like a cruel twist of fate that her contribution to a great modern-day boxing saga has yielded only three defeats, but her eight-year entanglement with Taylor has changed her life and enhanced her reputation as an iconic fighter in her own right.

Despite suggestions to the contrary all week, challenger Serrano walked first to the ring as is convention, one of her routine Spanish-language bangers immediately drowned out by her 12-or-13,000 supporters in attendance.

Champion Taylor then emerged from the tunnel to Junkie XL’s remix of Elvis Presley’s ‘A Little Less Conversation’, an obvious allusion to Serrano’s “whingeing” following her narrow defeats in their previous two fights.

From the ring, though, Taylor’s name was called first, with Serrano receiving the last ear-splitting roar on the precipice of the first bell.

MSG was as loud a Serrano house as it had been a Taylor house in 2022, but the Irish were still absolutely tearing into ‘Olé Olé’, adding to the cacophony which became feverish after the respective national anthems.

The first round, however, was equally a first for Taylor and Serrano’s trilogy: it passed almost entirely without incident.

With 11 seconds remaining, Taylor tapped Serrano’s chin with a speculative right-hand counter over the top, but neither boxer deserved to bank an opener in which they barely threw a punch, instead seeking to establish range and feel each other out.

Serrano pulled out a tidy straight left early in the second, to which Taylor soon afterwards responded with a similar counter.

The Irishwoman, who had been deducted a point by the referee and accused by Team Serrano of using her head intentionally during the second bout last November, had clearly decided to approach Friday’s affair with a greater degree of caution, utilising her superior footwork to box from a safer distance.

That said, the fight might as well have been 0-0 through the first two tentative rounds.

The bout then exploded to life halfway through round three, showing a hint of the magic from Taylor-Serrano 1 and 2.

The Bray woman timed a picturesque three-punch counter and Serrano replied with something similar. The pair traded spiteful left hooks to punctuate a more engaging round, which was again difficult to score.

As the Fields of Athenry reverberated around the arena in the fourth, Taylor began to enjoy her most effective round to that point. The champion boxed more off the front foot, launching a couple of two-punch raids and clipping Serrano with a neat right around the guard.

Serrano landed little in return, and the Irish alone continued to make the noise into the next minute’s break.

Taylor again appeared to take the fifth, landing the cleaner work throughout and swallowing only a singular Serrano left hand for her troubles. The Puerto Rican was throwing more punches but missing routinely, with Taylor’s defensive instincts nullifying the jab from which Serrano sets up so many of her meaningful attacks.

Taylor caught the challenger with a rare, vicious flurry from a neutral corner early in the sixth entry, broadly controlling the round. At the bell, however, Serrano sparked life back into the Puerto Ricans with a clawing left hand that, combined with an entanglement of their legs, knocked Taylor fractionally off balance in the direction of her corner.

Round 7, though, reverted to a non-event akin to the first three. The obvious danger in such quiet rounds is that they were conceivably keeping Serrano in the fight: the coin-flips would surely go the way of the promotional A-side who so many believe was unlucky not to win at least one of her first two bouts with Taylor.

She and Taylor traded slick, single punches again after 35 seconds of the eighth, Serrano finding a home for her left before the champion almost instantaneously returned serve with a right.

The Puerto Rican continued to push the action for the rest of the round, though, and almost certainly pocketed the 10-9.

This was getting close. Taylor’s trainer, Ross Enamait, tried to light a rocket under her ahead of the penultimate ninth, warning her to box more off the front foot and trust her hand speed against the more plodding Puerto Rican.

It was an inspired shout: Taylor upped the ante and kicked for home, winning the last two rounds comprehensively.

She outclassed Serrano down the stretch, just as she had three years prior. With the Puerto Ricans all but resigned to Serrano’s fate, the Irish grew louder. Taylor, imbued by the sound of her name echoing around the arena, converted that confidence into a dominant final round — her finest of the bout.

There were fewer Irish nerves this time as the judges handed in their tallies. Taylor had done a job on her. Game over, ball bursht.

Taylor was elated as her hand was raised, while Serrano was again tearful in defeat — but they were more so tears of appreciation for her involvement in three fights with a fistic soulmate that materially changed the face of her sport.

The late, great American sports journalist Jerry Izenberg, who was friends with both men, once said that Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier fought each other not to win the World heavyweight title but to win the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier title.

This equivalent is true of Taylor and Serrano, who on Friday night emulated The Greatest and Smokin’ Joe by having contested two thirds of their legendary trilogy on the same sacred soil.

Taylor’s light-welterweight belts were merely weights at the end of the fishing line. The trilogy’s titular characters were the hook.

Transatlantic trailblazers who elevated their craft and each other, their names will mean something for as long as boxing exists. One will rarely be invoked without mentioning the other.

They have become rich beyond their wildest dreams growing up in Bray and Brooklyn and their sport still owes them a more profound debt than the millions they each pocketed across three memorable contests.

But the debate is over. And so too, perhaps, is Taylor’s story in the ring.

Written by Gavan Casey and originally published on The 42 whose award-winning team produces original content that you won’t find anywhere else: on GAA, League of Ireland, women’s sport and boxing, as well as our game-changing rugby coverage, all with an Irish eye. Subscribe here.