Is Taylor vs. Serrano Really the Biggest Women’s Fight Ever?

Published

3 years ago

April 26, 2022

Is Taylor vs. Serrano Really the Biggest Women’s Fight Ever?

Some of the highest-grossing boxing matches ever were artistic duds, but that is not to diminish the importance of revenues generated in establishing some sort of pecking order. Financial gender equity with elite male fighters remains a goal far, far away from being achieved by women, if it ever is to be, but that is not to say history won’t be made Saturday night when arguably the top two current female practitioners of the pugilistic arts square off in the first card in the 140-year existence of Madison Square Garden headlined by fighters born with two X chromosomes.

Money is just another way of keeping score, and regardless of what transpires during the 10 scheduled rounds (or less) pitting undisputed women’s lightweight champion Katie Taylor (20-0, 6 KOs) and seven-division titlist Amanda Serrano (42-1-1, 30 KOs), a landmark scrap that will be streamed via DAZN, a milestone will be achieved. Taylor, from Bray, Ireland, and Serrano, the Brooklyn, N.Y., southpaw of Puerto Rican descent, are each down for purses of $1 million, making them the only fighters of their sex to join the seven-figure club that previously had been an all-male preserve.

It remains to be seen whether Taylor and Serrano justify their record-breaking paydays with the sort of exhilarating, two-way action that will come to be viewed as the distaff equivalent of the best work some of the legendary guys have had to offer. Becoming an instant millionaire for one night’s work, however, does and should come with certain perks. Don’t think that Taylor, a gold medalist at the 2012 London Olympics and the Boxing Writers Association of America’s 2019 and 2020 Female Fighter of the Year, and Serrano, the 2021 BWAA Female Fighter of the Year who comes in on a 10-year, 28-bout winning streak, aren’t aware of how much responsibility they are shouldering not only for the enhancement of their own professional futures and legacies, but for women hopeful of following in their footsteps.

“This is just a special occasion for me, to headline a huge fight like this at Madison Square Garden,” said Taylor, 35, whose WBC, IBF, and WBO 135-pound titles will be on the line. “It’s being billed as the biggest fight in female boxing history. This is just incredible and a real privilege for me.

“Amanda Serrano is a fantastic fighter. She deserves this opportunity as well. She’s been pioneering her own way and that’s why this fight is the best in female boxing history. We have champion vs. champion, the best vs. the best, and this is why this fight is so special. I think years and years from now people are still going to be talking about Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano.”

Said the 33-year-old Serrano: “I don’t need to talk bad about my opponents. I do all (my) talking inside the ring. I respect Katie Taylor and what she’s done. We’re changing the sport. I am excited to be opening doors. We have to prove who the pound-for-pound best is, because everybody has been asking for it.”

How open the doors are to which Serrano has referred is still a matter of some discussion. Yes, the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y., has gotten around to granting admittance to female fighters, beginning with the 2020 recognition of Moderns Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker, along with Barbara Buttrick in the Trailblazer category. They will be officially welcomed during the IBHOF’s four-day induction festivities from June 9-12, the past two ceremonies having been postponed by COVID-19. The 2021 Class includes Moderns Laila Ali and Ann Wolfe and Trailblazer Marian Trimiar, with the Class of 2022 adding Moderns Holly Holm and Regina Halmich and Trailblazer Jackie Tonawanda.

Regardless of whoever emerges victorious Saturday night in the Garden, it is a safe bet both Taylor and Serrano will someday join the aforementioned women with plaques hung on the hallowed walls of the IBHOF. Taylor and Serrano currently are rated Nos. 1 and 2 on the women’s pound-for-pound lists of the BWAA, ESPN and DAZN, with Taylor and Serrano first and third as cited by The Ring and Sports Illustrated, sandwiched around two-time Olympic gold medalist and self-proclaimed “greatest woman of all time” Claressa Shields. But the talent pool of women of comparable achievement is still relatively shallow, and the fact that both Taylor and Serrano are in their 30s suggests that their exemplary careers likely have as much or more past than future. The incursions of Father Time and Mother Nature further ratchet up the necessity of Saturday night’s main-eventers to put on a show capable of inspiring a new generation of girls and women to tug on padded gloves and climb inside the ropes.

Jake Paul, the YouTube sensation whose ballyhooed entrance into the fight game has met with both praise from new devotees to the sport and criticism from stodgy traditionalists, is outspoken in his support of women’s boxing, and most specifically Serrano, whom he signed to a contract with his Most Valuable Promotions and featured on his own highly profitable cards. When the prospect of a superfight pairing of Taylor (who is promoted by Eddie Hearn) and Serrano was initially raised, the dollar amount pitched to Team Serrano was an almost-unheard-of $300,000, which Serrano’s trainer/manager, Jordan Maldonado, rejected as being insufficient for his fighter.

“You have to know your worth at times,” Serrano said of her determination to ascend to a monetary summit never previously scaled by a female fighter, but will now have those figurative flags planted by herself and Taylor. Still, the dream fight did not only face contractual hurdles; the originally proposed date of May 2, 2020, was postponed, as were numerous other bouts, by the lingering effects of COVID-19. As more and more time slipped away, representatives of both fighters feared the matchup desired by many would never advance beyond the theoretical.

But now it’s here, and its possible ramifications for women’s sports history have yet to be fully determined. The crusading Billie Jean King years ago won her fight for pay parity with men in big-time tennis, and Title IX nudged many women’s college sports out of the shadows into a spotlight, albeit a somewhat less brightly lit one than the men in basketball. Another victory was achieved recently when the United States’ National Women’s Soccer Team received a new contract that paid its members the same as the men’s team.

How much is a million dollars for a single fight to Taylor and Serrano? It is an imagined fantasy come true, with the possibility of more such bouts shimmering ahead like so many oases. But the pay gap between top-tier men and women remains Grand Canyonesque. The combined purses of Taylor and Serrano are mere chump change when compared to the reported $240 million Floyd Mayweather Jr. received for his May 2, 2015, fight with Manny Pacquiao, who had to “settle” for $120 million or so. As is the case with American professional basketball, where WNBA superstars are virtual paupers in comparison even with NBA bench-warmers, boxing will never represent a level playing field for women who can only hope for more and tastier scraps falling off the men’s banquet table.

“Equity is really how we redistribute power,” Temple University Sports Psychology professor Leeja Carter said after the U.S. women’s soccer team finally got the major pay hike its players figured they had earned on the pitch. Soccer, however, is not boxing; the redistribution of power in the ring is not likely to ever resemble anything even remotely equitable for women whose acceptance in a sport mostly populated and dominated by men is, at best, a work in progress.

It is incumbent upon Taylor and Serrano to give fans and non-fans of women’s boxing reason to believe that their brand of the sweet science is deserving of a longer look. For every undeniably entertaining fight, such as Christy Martin’s bloody stoppage of Deirdre Gogarty and Taylor’s first meeting with Delfine Persoon, there are other potential breakthrough bouts that don’t rise to that level. When Claressa Shields turned pro after her two Olympic golds, some predicted that she would establish herself as the female Mike Tyson, a skilled boxer with the sort of power that would surely make her a make-see attraction. But while Shields has a key to the throne room, the fact remains that, undefeated and dominant in her 12 bouts, she has scored only two victories inside the distance and no longer is being referred to as the same sort of power source as was Tyson. Even her most significant victory, a one-sided unanimous decision over Germany-based Christina Hammer, was not competitive enough to live up to the hype.

My first exposure to the “biggest female bout of all time” was the June 8, 2001, matchup of celebrity daughters Laila Ali and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona, N.Y. It was a global media event, but more so given the identity of the fighters’ even more celebrated fathers, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, a major factor in the reported $250,000 which went to each woman. The 23-year-old Laila scored an eight-round majority decision over Jacqui, 39 and a mother of two, and drew some positive comments.

“Both women showed grit and determination,” said Al Bernstein, who did the post-fight interviews. “They are in the embryonic stages of their boxing careers, but they gave it everything they had and you can’t ask for anything more than that. Are there better women boxers? Yes. Would I just as soon see Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker fight? Yes. But this was fun, it was competitive and it was hardly a travesty.”

Interestingly, Martin and Rijker were to have swapped punches on July 30, 2005, at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay in what was being touted as the first women’s million-dollar fight. But that description was only partially correct; in a matchup of 37-year-olds, Martin (45-3-2, 31 KOs) and Rijker (17-0, 14 KOs) were guaranteed $250,000 each, with promoter Bob Arum providing an additional $750,000 to the winner. The fight was canceled and never rescheduled after Rijker ruptured her Achilles tendon in training on July 20.

“I would not be telling the truth if I didn’t say that, without the movie (2004’s Academy Award-winning Million Dollar Baby, in which Rijker played the role of a female villain who fought Hilary Swank’s character trained by the veteran cornerman played by Clint Eastwood), we wouldn’t be doing this,” Arum admitted. “The movie highlighted women’s boxing and made it seem very exciting. Clearly, it was the impetus for me to put on this event. Without Million Dollar Baby, I didn’t think there was much future in women’s boxing. After seeing that film, I had second thoughts.”

Frazier-Lyde, after hearing Arum’s thoughts on the matter, railed against the notion that women’s boxing needed a Hollywood tie-in to make women’s boxing interesting enough to merit much public interest. “I would like all fighters to make the money they deserve, but it all boils down – or should – to making great fights,” she said. “Whether its women or men, you shouldn’t need a movie to sell a great fight. Genuine boxing matches sell themselves. Lucia and Christy have made great contributions to the game. They don’t need something fictitious to get the recognition they already should have had.”

Nearly 17 years after Martin-Rijker went by the boards, Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano – real million dollar babies — will attempt to verify Frazier-Lyde’s heartfelt contention that truly meritorious matchups, including those involving women, don’t need fake bells and whistles.

Bernard Fernandez, named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in the Observer category with the Class of 2020, was the recipient of numerous awards for writing excellence during his 28-year career as a sports writer for the Philadelphia Daily News. Fernandez’s first book, “Championship Rounds,” a compendium of previously published material, was released in May of 2020. The sequel, “Championship Rounds, Round 2,” with a foreword by Jim Lampley, is currently out. The anthology can be ordered through Amazon.com and other book-selling websites and outlets.

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Undercard Results from Las Vegas where Mirco Cuello Saved his Best for Last

Published

3 hours ago

February 1, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Premier Boxing Champions was at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas tonight with a card topped by a battle between undefeated light heavyweights David Benavidez and David Morrell. Six prelims preceded the four-bout PPV portion of the show airing on Prime Video PPV and PPV.com.

David Benavidez’s older brother Jose Benavidez Jr kicked things off with a fifth-round stoppage of Danny Rosenberger. It was odd to see the older Benavidez fighting an 8-round contest in a nearly empty arena. Heading in, he was 28-3-1 (19) with his only setbacks coming in bouts with Terence Crawford, Jarmall Charlo, and Danny Garcia. But Benavidez Jr, fighting as a middleweight in the sunset of his career, was too good for Youngstown, Ohio’s self-managed Rosenberger (20-10-4).

Unbeaten in his last 15 starts which included a draw with Nico Ali Walsh that was changed to a no-decision when the Ohioan tested positive for a banned substance, Rosenberger was on his feet and wasn’t badly hurt when the referee waived it off, it but to that point it had been a one-sided fight.

Cuello-Olivo

The marquee fight of the prelims, so to speak, pit Argentina’s Mirco Cuello, an Olympic bronze medalist in Tokyo, managed by Sampson Lewkowicz, against Christian Olivo in a 10-round featherweight contest. The Argentine, undefeated in 14 starts with 11 KOs, was a heavy favorite over his Mexican adversary and yet very nearly came a cropper, getting off the deck to pull the match out of the fire in the final round.

In the second round, Olivo knocked Cuello to his knees with a left-right combination and Cuello found himself on the canvas for the first time in his career. From that point on, this was a competitive, fan-friendly fight, seemingly closer than the judges’ scores which became moot when Cuello took the fight out of their hands, decking Olivo twice, both left hooks to the solar plexus, which motivated referee Chris Flores to step in and stop it with heavy underdog Olivo (22-2-1) ahead by 6, 4, and 2 points through the completed rounds. The official time was 2:01.

This match was billed as a WBA eliminator which puts Cuello in line to fight England’s Nick Ball but, given a choice, Cuello may opt for the Figueroa-Fulton winner later tonight.

Other Bouts

Yoenli Hernandez, a 27-year-old Cuban, TKOed feisty but overmatched Angel Ruiz in the fifth round of an 8-round middleweight affair. Hernandez has now won all seven of his pro fights inside the distance after ending his amateur career with 26 straight wins. He bears watching. Mexico’s Ruiz falls to 19-4-1.

Salt Lake City lightweight Curmel Moton, the 18-year-old prodigy of Floyd Mayweather Jr, advanced to 7-0 (6 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Frank Zaldivar (5-2).

Milwaukee super middleweight Daniel Blancas, a stablemate of the Benavidez brothers, improved to 12-0 (5) with a unanimous 8-round decision over Victorville, California’s Juan Barajas (11-1-2). Blancas won comfortably on the cards (80-72, 79-73 twice), but Barajas came to fight and was no pushover.

Super middleweight John “Candyman” Easter, a promising prospect, was forced to go the distance for the first time in his young career, but was a clear-cut winner over Portland, Oregon’s Joseph Aguilar in their six-round match, winning by scores of 60-54 and 59-55 twice. The 22-year-old Easter advanced to 8-0. Aguilar dops to 6-3-1.

Check back later for David Avila’s recap of the Benavidez-Morrell fight and the three other PPV bouts.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 311: Jim Lampley Adds Class to the Benavidez-Morrell Rumble

Published

1 day ago

January 31, 2025

David A. Avila

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 311: Jim Lampley Adds Class to the Benavidez-Morrell Rumble

Boxing is the oldest sport.

For at least the last 100 years or so, a person with a microphone sitting ringside as an observer has spewed details in machine gun fashion to a radio or television audience of hand-to-hand combat taking place in a boxing ring.

There have been many excellent orators of the sweet science, too many to name, but one who stands out is Jim Lampley. He is the Cicero of boxing journalism.

Through showers of blood, saliva and sometimes body parts, Lampley gave oratory of boxing matches taking place from the days of Sugar Ray Leonard to the emergence of women’s boxing.

Lampley and his merry men of boxing journalism return to Las Vegas for the light heavyweight clash between David Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) and David Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) on Saturday Feb. 1, at T-Mobile Arena. PPV.Com will stream the fight card among other media outlets.

“People want to see the stars. They want to see the biggest stars,” says Lampley (pictured on the right with Morrell) about today’s boxing platforms. “We’ve gone from mass distribution to point to point distribution…it’s a product of the current digital world and how that operates.”

No other journalist rivals Lampley when it comes to prizefighting. No other can match the style and grace he describes a sport that brings unexpected intensity and sometimes shocking results.

Think Juan Manuel Marquez knocking out the great Manny Pacquiao in their fourth and final meeting in 2012.

Boxing’s Voice

Lampley has few rivals in broadcast journalism unless you compare other sports like baseball where the late Dodger announcer Vin Scully carved his legend. Or perhaps Chick Hearn the originator of pop culture basketball terminology like “it’s in the refrigerator.”

Boxing has Lampley and since his childhood, the sport has captivated his interest. He recalls after his father passed away his mother sat him in front of a small television set at age six to watch Sugar Ray Robinson fight Carl “Bobo” Olson in their second fight. Boxing was his babysitter.

“I’ve had boxing in my heart and in my head ever since,” Lampley said.

During his youth, after his widowed mother moved their family to Miami, Florida, the young Lampley saved car washing and lawn-mowing money to buy a ticket to watch Cassius Clay versus Sonny Liston.

“My mother took me and dropped me off with my individual ticket to go in and watch the fight. That was the night I saw my very first prize fight,” described Lampley about one of the most important boxing events that took place in 1964. “So, boxing has always been big in my background and in my sports fan experience.”

Eventually Lampley worked with ABC Sports covering college football, Wide World of Sports, and Olympic coverage. The only sport he did not cover in 13 years was boxing because Howard Cosell had a vice grip hold on boxing coverage for ABC. But when new leadership arrived it was decided to insert Lampley to cover boxing as a means of punishment.

“He immediately sized up that I was culturally allergic to boxing,” said Lampley of the new ABC leadership. “He assumed that I would be such a bad fit in boxing that it would bring an end to my broadcasting career and kick me out of his division.”

Ironically the event Lampley was forced to cover was Mike Tyson against Jesse Ferguson in Troy, New York on February 1986.

“This was an astonishing opportunity,” Lampley said. “Maybe this was meant to be,”

After a year or two more with ABC, Lampley moved to CBS and HBO to be part of their boxing programming and blazed a course for that program and himself as the preeminent voice of boxing broadcasting.

From Duran to Mayweather

Among those epic fights HBO covered featured Roberto Duran, Boom Boom Mancini, Marvin Halger, Roy Jones Jr., Oscar De La Hoya, Lennox Lewis, James Toney, Bernard Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather to name some.

When it was announced that new ownership for HBO decided to cancel its boxing programming, the boxing world was aghast.

“It was painful, sad, I was bereft,” said Lampley of the last HBO boxing card at the StubHub Center in Carson, Calif. “We had no idea why the brand new owners at HBO, a bunch of cell phone salesmen from Dallas, did not see boxing as an important part of the franchise.”

That night on Dec. 8, 2018, women’s boxing was featured for the first and only time on HBO. Lampley was aided by Max Kellerman and Roy Jones Jr. It was a cold night as usual at the outdoor arena known for its gladiator-like results such as the two bloody clashes between Israel Vazquez and Rafael Marquez. (Photo insert: Lampley’s last HBO hurrah; photo by Al Applerose)

Among the women who fought that evening were Cecilia Braekhus and Claressa Shields. Ironically, seven months earlier, Braekhus fought Kali Reis at the same venue. Reis would go on to earn an Emmy nomination for an HBO series for her portrayal in the True Detective series.

Six years ago was HBO and Lampley’s final bow together.

“Still to this day I have no idea why they thought that was better for the long term,” Lampley said of HBO’s boxing abortion.

PPV.COM

Though HBO Championship Boxing no longer exists, Lampley’s undisputed talent for describing the art of boxing has brought him back. Now he represents PPV.COM an outfit wise enough to recognize the appeal of boxing’s greatest broadcast journalist from 1988 to December 2018. They reeled him back and with a new format that includes texting with fans during the actual fights.

“I help introduce the audience to the new communication phenomenon which I’m involved,” said Lampley who is partnered with journalist Dan Canobbio and Chris Algieri for this event. “It puts me back in touch with all my old friends in the media room where I spend the whole week leading up to the fight.”

Lampley recalls his first broadcast with PPV.COM 15 months ago already saw debates regarding undefeated David Benavidez possibly accepting a challenge from David Morrell.

“As style fights go, its potentially a great one,” said Lampley. “Its two punchers with legitimate punching power in an extremely fan friendly fight. The winner is regarded as logical upcoming opponent for Canelo Alvarez the number one money attraction in the world.”

On Saturday night when Benavidez and Morrell lead a talented fight card, be sure to select PPV.COM as your choice to listen to Lampley’s undeniable talent for describing boxing action.

Take advantage boxing fans.

One last note, Lampley’s book “It Happened” will be coming soon on April 15.

Fights to Watch

Sat. PPV.COM 3 p.m. David Benavidez (29-0) vs David Morrell (11-0); Brandon Figueroa (25-1-1) vs Stephen Fulton (22-1); Isaac Cruz (26-3-1) vs Angel Fierro (23-2-2).

Sun. DAZN 4:30 p.m. Claressa Shields (15-0) vs Danielle Perkins (5-0).

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Hall of Fame Boxing Writer Michael Katz (1939-2025) Could Wield His Pen like a Stiletto

Published

2 days ago

January 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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One of the last of the breed – a full-time boxing writer for the print edition of a major metropolitan daily – left us this week. Hall of Fame boxing writer Michael Katz was 85 when he drew his last breath at an assisted living facility in Brooklyn on Monday, Jan. 27.

Born in the Bronx, Katz earned his spurs writing for the school newspaper “The Campus” at the City College of New York. He was living in Paris and working for the international edition of the New York Times when he covered his first fight, the 15-round contest between Floyd Patterson and Jimmy Ellis at Stockholm in 1968. He eventually became the Times boxing writer, serving in that capacity for almost nine years before bolting for the New York Daily News in 1985 where he was reunited with the late Vic Ziegel, his former CCNY classmate and cohort at the campus newspaper.

From a legacy standpoint, leaving America’s “paper of record” for a tabloid would seem to be a step down. Before the digital age, the Times was one of only a handful of papers that could be found on microfilm in every college library. Tabloids like the Daily News were evanescent. Yesterday’s paper, said the cynics, was only good for wrapping fish.

But at the Daily News, Michael Katz was less fettered, less of a straight reporter and more of a columnist, freer to air his opinions which tended toward the snarky. Regarding the promoter Don King, Katz wrote, “On the way to the gallows, Don King would try to pick the pocket of the executioner.”

With his metaphoric inkwell steeped in bile, Katz made many enemies. “Bob Arum would sell tickets to a Joey Buttafuoco lecture on morals and be convinced it was for a noble cause,” wrote Katz in 1993. Arum had had enough when Katz took him to task for promoting a fight on the night of Yom Kippur and sued Katz for libel.

“It was out of my hands, HBO picked the date,” said Arum of the 1997 bout between Buster Douglas and John Ruiz that never did come off after Douglas suffered a hand injury in training. (Arum would subsequently drop the suit, saying it wasn’t worth the hassle.)

At press luncheons in Las Vegas, the PR people always made certain to seat Katz with his pals Ed Schuyler, the Associated Press boxing writer, and Pat Putnam, the Sports Illustrated guy. They reveled in each other’s company. But Katz also made enemies with some of his peers on press row, in some cases fracturing longstanding friendships.

“I like Hauser,” wrote Katz in a review of Thomas Hauser’s award-winning biography of Muhammad Ali, “and was afraid that after Tom put in those thousands of hours with Ali, somehow the book couldn’t be as good as I wanted. With relief, I can report it’s better than I had hoped.”

The two later had a falling-out.

Katz’s most celebrated run-in with a colleague happened in June of 2004 when he scuffled with Boston Globe boxing writer Ron Borges in the media room at the MGM Grand during the pre-fight press conference for the fight between Oscar De La Hoya and Felix Sturm. During the fracas, Katz, Borges, Arum, and Arum’s publicist Lee Samuels toppled to the floor. The cantankerous Katz, who initiated the fracas by attacking Borges verbally, then wore a neck brace and carried a cane.

“I had my ups and downs with him,” wrote Borges on social media upon learning of Katz’s death, “but we traveled the world together for nearly 50 years and I long admired his talent, his willingness to stand up for fighters and to call out the b.s. of boxing and its promoters and broadcast entities who worked diligently to try and destroy a noble sport.”

A little-known fact about Michael Katz is that he played a role in getting one of the best boxing books, George Kimball’s vaunted “Four Kings,” to its publishing house. Kimball, who passed away in 2011, an esophageal cancer victim at age 67, was hospitalized and too ill to finish the proofing and editing of the manuscript and enlisted the aid of Katz and an old friend from Boston, Tom Frail, an editor at the Smithsonian magazine, to complete the finishing touches. “If there are any mistakes in the book,” wisecracked Kimball, “blame them.”

Katz was one of the first sportswriters to hop on the internet bandwagon, moving his tack to HouseofBoxing.com which became MaxBoxing.com. That didn’t work out so well for him. Some of his last published pieces ran in the Memphis Commercial Appeal and in the Las Vegas weekly Gaming Today.

A widower for much of his adult life, Katz was predeceased by his only child, his beloved daughter Moorea, a cancer sufferer who passed away in 2021. Her death took all the spirit out of him, noted matchmaker and freelance boxing writer Eric Bottjer in a moving tribute.

During a moment in Atlantic City, Bottjer had been privy to a different side of the irascible curmudgeon, “a beautiful soul when open and vulnerable.” The best way to honor Katz’s memory, he writes, is to reach out to a long lost friend. Pass it on.

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