Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano go at it again at Madison Square Garden tonight. The fight’s being promoted as the biggest in the history of women’s boxing. Who could argue? It’s the first female trilogy matchup of note, in the most famous boxing arena in the world, and the previous two bouts were iconic thrillers.
But as of this week, tickets from greedy Ticketmaster could be had for under $44, greedy fees included. That’s an astonishingly low get-in price for a fistic Garden party of such stature. The cheapest seat at the same building a night later for the "Weird Al" Yankovic show will run you about twice as much.
So what the hell’s up? Is this threepeat too much of a great thing? Do the Irish hate us too much right now to cross the pond to support their most beloved athlete in the numbers they have in the past? Is boxing entering another slump? Some combo of all of the above?
“It doesn’t have the same buzz that their first fight had,” said Thomas Hauser, the longtime ring writer and Boxing Hall of Fame inductee best known as the preeminent Muhammad Ali biographer. Hauser, a New Yorker, was at the Garden in April 2022 for Taylor-Serrano I, which topped his and everybody else’s Women’s Fight of the Year poll, and then some.
“Not only was it the biggest women’s fight ever,” he wrote of the bout, won by Taylor in a split decision, “it might have been the best.”
But this time around, Hauser’s among those who just aren’t as excited about the bout as they feel they should be. “My sense is now there’s a little bit of fatigue over seeing them again,” he said.
He’s not alone in his apathy, as the ticket aftermarket attests. This, despite the fact that both fighters are only more popular and more accomplished now than before their first dance.
Taylor suffered her first career loss in April 2023 to England’s Chantelle Cameron in a Dublin donnybrook that could have gone either way. But Taylor reclaimed the title, avenged that lone loss, and put herself back atop the pound-for-pound rankings just six months later by winning a rematch with Cameron in still another instant-classic brawl; the action was so great, a broadcaster proclaimed it “fight of the year” in the seventh round.
The second Taylor-Serrano clash, on the undercard of the Mike Tyson–Jake Paul last November in Arlington, Texas, only enhanced the reputation and renown of both women. They beat the crap out of each other for every one of the 10 two-minute rounds. Serrano gamely fought on after a fourth-round headbutt ripped a war-wound-looking gash just above her right eye. But Taylor, repeatedly landing four- and five-punch blitzes to Serrano’s face, won a close but unanimous decision from ringside judges. After the Tyson-Paul headline tilt ended up being the circus everybody feared it would be, Taylor and Serrano were painted as the night’s big winners. Yet here we are.
Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder (with Paul) of Most Valuable Promotions, the primary promoter of Friday’s fight, didn’t express any anxiety about the runup to the trilogy match. “The fight is ahead of their first fight in terms of tickets sold,” Bidarian told Defector via email, adding that the event is “trending toward a sellout.”
Bidarian declined to discuss why so many tickets remained unsold, or why reselling sites have so much Taylor-Serrano inventory at bargain-basement prices.
But there are some public indications of promoters’ angst. Signs saying “Tickets Available” were posted all over the dais at Wednesday's final pre-fight press conference. At that event, Bidarian went to silly lengths to sell the card’s importance beyond Taylor-Serrano.
“On Friday night, a Guinness World Record 17 sanctioning body world titles [are] on the line!” Bidarian boasted. “Never been done before in the sport!”
Seventeen belts up for grabs? There are only 16 fighters on the eight-fight card. Bidarian inadvertently highlighted one of boxing’s biggest problems: title deflation.
A 2023 report in the Guardian, citing the wondrous boxing data clearinghouse boxrec.com, held that boxing’s various sanctioning bodies around the globe were offering “1,380 female titles in 15 weight divisions.” Taylor alone holds five different light-welterweight belts (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO, and Ring magazine's).
Hauser once looked at the crunched numbers from the same database and found that “one out of every seven women’s fights” was for a title. “There’s too many belts," he told me, “and nobody can name any champions.”
Tourism problems could be in play, also. Taylor, despite moving to the U.S. and buying a house in Connecticut in 2019, remains a real big deal back home. Even Taoiseach Micheál Martin issues statements after her fights. After her 2023 win over Cameron, there was very loud chatter in Ireland about staging a Taylor fight at Croke Park, a hallowed Dublin stadium with a capacity of over 82,000. But Taylor's British promoter, Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing, never made it happen. Irish fans went over to Texas for her 2022 fight with Serrano and made themselves obvious: A highlight of fight week came when Paul taunted all the rowdy pro-Taylor tourists who cheered on their hero at the weigh-in.
There was no noticeable presence of Irish fans at Wednesday’s press conference, which was open to the public. Bidarian declined to address questions about whether MVP expected Irish fans to be at the Garden this time.
Perhaps they're on the plane now. Or perhaps the Irish, like everybody else, don’t want to travel to the U.S. in 2025.
Edith Delaney, spokesperson for the Irish embassy in D.C., told Defector that the government “does not hold data on travel numbers or ticket sales for individual sporting events.” The Irish government, however, did issue a travel advisory in March for citizens thinking of crossing the pond, citing treatment of LGBTQ travelers under the new presidential administration.
For all the lack of background weirdness, given how brutally Taylor and Serrano have beaten each other’s ass for fans’ entertainment twice already, the only real upset would be if the third time’s not also a charmer.
Yet the serial combatants do seem to be a bit bored with one another after all they’ve been through together. Near the end of Wednesday’s press conference, former combat sports journalist-turned-MVP barker Ariel Helwani, who was emceeing the event, called Taylor and Serrano to center stage for a face-off. This is a time when fighters are supposed to scowl and mean-mug and throw faux punches toward each other’s heads, one of the oldest and lamest ticket-selling gimmicks in the fight game. But this is their third rodeo. Taylor and Serrano appeared to spend their time stifling giggles. So Helwani sent folks home by bringing up that in March 1971, the very same venue hosted the first chapter in the greatest boxing trilogy of all time: Ali vs. Joe Frazier.
“Friday, July 11th!” Helwani barked. “We'll put that right next to March 8th, 1971! They'll be talking about it for decades. Get in the building if you can!”
Oh, you can get in the building, all right.
