Friday night’s rematch win over Amanda Serrano left Katie Taylor with all the titles in the women’s light welterweight division. But it’s hard to call Taylor the undisputed champ, at least for now, what with the disputes over the scorecards in her favor, and all those headbutts.
By the end of another brawl for the ages, Serrano had what looked like a war wound over her right eye, a gash so big it seemed to be smiling for the camera. Serrano seemed to shudder while getting ready for her post-fight ring interview when she looked at a nearby TV monitor and first saw how her face looked. How that injury came about gave this bout its main controversy, and should make for a proper selling point for why these women will have to go at it yet again.
Taylor was given a close but unanimous decision after 10 furious two-minute rounds, with all three judges scoring it 95-94. The nonstop action made a great case for keeping women’s boxing rounds short. Yet an audible portion of the 70,000-plus fans that filled AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, for the Mike Tyson/Jake Paul circus, booed as Taylor’s arm was raised, bothered that the scorecards favored the Irish idol over the Puerto Rican pugilist. This was the second time Serrano has come out on the losing end of a controversial decision to Taylor, who got a split decision win their first fight, another wondrously barbaric bout in May 2022. That fight was the first women’s headlining event in Madison Square Garden, and capped off what was hailed as the biggest night for women’s boxing of all time.
Taylor’s fights tend to get tagged as instant classics, as this one was by the Netflix commentators even before the final bell was rung. But it almost ended real early. Taylor hadn’t been in the ring since late November 2023, when she beat Chantelle Cameron in yet another all-timer of a bout that avenged the only loss of her career. Taking advantage of whatever rust Taylor’s longest-ever layoff left her with, Serrano started fast, landing two huge overhand lefts in the first round. The second haymaker sent Taylor stumbling into the ropes and obviously dazed. But when Serrano came in for the kill, Taylor clinched as a veteran fighter would, and her sensibilities and titles were saved by the bell. Serrano would have other moments, but that would stand as her best round, and best punch of the night.
Beginning in the second round, Taylor started landing straight rights and looping lefts on the challenger’s noggin with great regularity. Her attacks were particularly effective coming out of clinches, and when she’d release ridiculously quick and accurate three- and four-punch combinations that the judges apparently gave great sway to. The lefthanded Serrano threw more and heavier punches than Taylor, especially in the early rounds. But the champion, fighting righty (or “orthodox”), seemed a little better at avoiding being hit. Both fighters were throwing every punch strictly at each other’s heads; if you want body shots, go to a tequila bar, because there weren’t any to be found in this fight.
And then their foreheads started banging into each other, beginning after the third round. Because of their stances, matchups of a lefthander (Serrano) versus a righthander can naturally lead to headbutts. And on this night, they did. At first, the guilt for the butting was distributed equally by referee Jon Schorle. After a particularly heavy cranial collision in the fourth, Schorle went over to the judges to tell them the butts were accidental.
“Orthodox, southpaw it happens all the time,” said Netflix fight caller Mauro Ranallo. Color commentator Roy Jones Jr. agreed that headbutts were a byproduct of any lefty/righty matchup and not dirty pool on anybody’s part.
The damage from those clashes was not doled out equitably, however. Serrano’s eyebrow was hanging a half-inch lower than normal by the fourth round, and blood poured from the massive cut the rest of the fight. The gash grew as the fight went on, and the ref and Serrano’s trainer, Jordan Maldonado, started blaming Taylor’s fighting style.
“She’s gonna do that dirty shit,” Maldonado yelled to his fighter after the fifth round. “That’s all she can do! She grabs you, she’s gonna headbutt you!”
Replays showed Serrano leading with her head as much as Taylor when the fighters came together. But Serrano was wearing her wounds much more visibly, and Schorle started handing out warnings to Taylor to change her ways. In round eight, after Serrano came out worse from yet another big headbutt, Schorle briefly stopped the bout and deducted a point from Taylor.
But Serrano’s huge cut likely took a mental toll and caused sight impairment. Just as Serrano’s biggest moments came early, Taylor’s came late. She threw her finest flurry of fists at Serrano’s face in the fight’s last 15 seconds. And that might have been the difference between winning and losing. The judges all gave the champ the nod by a point, even with the questionable deduction for headbutts.
Serrano didn’t endorse the decision against her. “I knew if it went to the judges, it was going to be a little shady,” she said in her interview afterward.
Serrano, when asked about the headbutts, shrugged and said that’s how Taylor fights. She said the only times she’s ever been cut in 51 career bouts (47-3-1 record) were in her two Taylor matchups. Maldonado agreed that this was a Taylor problem. “She’s such a nice person outside," the losing trainer said to interviewer Ariel Helwani. “But she goes in there and she’s so dirty! She leads with her head, man. That’s her best attribute … All she can do is fucking headbutt and hold.”
Taylor’s reputation back home is unbesmirched and unbesmirchable. She launched her pro career after winning gold in the 2012 Olympics, and has finished first in an annual poll of Ireland’s most admired athletes for seven years in a row. In a 2023 profile of the national hero, Alex Pattle of The Independent wrote, “When Taylor fights, God looks down and Irish children look up.”
After the fight, the 38-year-old Taylor didn’t cotton to the character smirching coming from the Serrano camp, or the talk that she was gifted a bogus decision. “I certainly wasn’t fighting dirty,” she said. “Sometimes it gets rough in there, and you have to prepare for those moments. I don’t care if the commentary team or the crowd disagree. The only ones that matter are the judges around the ring.”
The loss makes Serrano, 36, sort of the Gennady Golovkin to Taylor’s Canelo Alvarez. Triple G lost decisions in his first two bouts with Canelo, a pair of all-time great fights between all-time great fighters, but both losses were pegged as robberies. Trilogies are what boxing history is all about. Golovkin and Canelo had a third fight, and these women will have to go at it once more, too. Marvin Gaye wasn't talking about boxing, but let's get it on.
