Sometimes my feet are tired and my hands are quiet, but there is no quiet in my heart. W.B. Yeats, Irish Poet, 1865-1939
Katie Taylor answered in her characteristic manner. Certain. Humble. Promoter Eddie Hearn waxed lyrical. Ignoring the boos of progressively deeper octave; “Ireland, Croke Park. Serrano. Has to be. If not, someone else. But it is Ireland next.” Taylor’s Irish eyes smiled, warming to a familiar squint. Sweat still springs. Cheeks thickened. Her aching hands resting on silk hips. As the questions were posed and the cliches shared, hundreds still loitered among the strewn plastic cups and the Saturday night spilt at their feet. Taylor had done as expected; beating the tall, organised Argentinian Karen Elizabeth Carabajal for all the Lightweight belts by unanimous points decision. Knockouts, the violent climax ticket buyers crave still stubbornly elusive.
Still friends and strangers sway, arms entwined, a joyful scrummage. The shrewd and restless twist their necks to listen as they clambered for the exits. The nocturnes and neon of the London night, the rationed taxi cabs and their prodigal sibling of the morning’s regret quickening their stride. Irish tricolours stretch and fall. Cheers, drunk with vowels tumble down toward the ring and the garden of microphones.
Katie Taylor fills arenas. And her eyes are on the biggest of all. One with both history and meaning for the people of Ireland.
From her debut six years ago at the same Wembley Arena she boxed at two weeks ago, Taylor has achieved much. Few fulfil their potential as completely and in doing so she has transformed perceptions of Women’s Boxing as both a commercial entity and as a sport. The shoulders of lesser known pioneers may be beneath her lofty perch, those who fought merely for permission to fight for pay, but Taylor has been a beacon for both her contemporaries and bright eyed youngsters following in her wake too.
However her story concludes, for the Autumn leaves are falling, she has forged a path through resistance and skepticism to enshrine her name into Irish sporting history.
If the dream of a fight at Croke Park materialises, the largest capacity non-football venue in Europe no less, Taylor will not only tread among the ‘giants’ idolised in the National games of Gaelic football and hurling, but in the footsteps of the Greatest of them all.
Muhammad Ali famously fought there in 1972.
Taylor casts her own shadow these days, as people who lead and always look forward often do. No longer just an exemplar for women’s boxing, though her influence cannot be over-stated, but for boxing as a whole. A triumph of dedication, will and self-belief. She is active, consistent and driven. And in Eddie Hearn she has found an advocate willing to platform women’s boxing to the masses. It has been a successful partnership and the crescendo of a home stadium fight now awaits.
In the summer of 1972, the story was much different. Where now stands the made to measure salesmanship of Eddie Hearn once stood former circus strongman, Michael Sugrue. Widely known as Butty, the stoutest of Irish stouts, and the subject of tall tales, the tallest of which claims he once pulled a London bus up Kilburn High Road while pushing a pram with the other. Exactly the stories with which legends are made and embraced by nostalgics drowning in the cynicism of the modern era. Sugrue had a colourful past and a flair for the creative idea. To draw Ali to Ireland, six fights in to his post-Frazier comeback seems beyond comprehension, even now, in full knowledge of the event.
Ali’s opponent that day was Al ‘Blue’ Lewis, a fringe contender to the fringe contenders of the period, from the Motor town of Detroit and a one time sparring partner of the rebounding Ali. The booking was a reward for Lewis’ loyalty. Dublin welcomed the travelling troupe but Sugrue and partners lost money. Although he would always deny the obvious. Within 18 months Lewis was retired, a freak accident when acting as Samaritan to a priest who had broken down costing him the sight in one eye.
12th November would’ve been Lewis 80th birthday, he passed away almost 5 years ago.
Such was the enormity of the Ali visit, incongruous, chaotic and blarney powered as it was, and the memories accrued by the Dubliners he encountered, that the tunnel he emerged from is now renamed in his honour. One can assume this will be a touchstone to history that Taylor, Hearn and their broadcaster partners will lean on heavily once a fight is finalised.
Taylor isn’t Ali, Hearn isn’t Sugrue and if Serrano signs on for a rematch she is of greater distinction than Lewis too, but it won’t stop the echoes being felt and the symmetries being struck.
BOXINGWRITER.CO.UK 
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