Katie Taylor Wraps Up Her Career At Croke Park

0:00The last word with life pharmacy over 100 local pharmacies nationwide that are always here to help life pharmacy live better together. And so let's talk about tomorrow night's big fight. The final fight in the glorious career of Katie Taylor taking place a croak park in front of a crowd of about 80,000 people. Her opponent is French Florent La Pile. He was joined by Gavin Casey, sports writer for the 42.ie who has seen Katie so many times over the years, both as an Olympic gold medalist as an amateur and as a multiple winner of world titles at professional level. Gavin, what should we expect from tomorrow night? I think firstly on occasion to remember, Matt, it's one for the history books and one that will enter the annals of Irish sport. I guess it's interesting to frame it that way for the first time in a career where the fight is almost secondary. Not to her of course, but I think to everybody who'll tune in on or to you or on on the zone.

1:04And all of the 80,000 or so people who will be in attendance as well. It's almost an occasion on which you're bidding farewell to an Irish sporting legend. And Florent La Pile and the actual fight and the belts on the line are almost an afterthought, but not quite. And yeah, I think complete with musical acts, I think the Mary Wallopers are due to play, Westlight, for certainly going to be there as well. It's going to be a celebration of all things Irish and a celebration of somebody who's contributed an awful lot to Irish sport now. I mean, she's been boxing competitively for 30 odd years and you can imagine her emotional that's been for her over the last few weeks and months that she ruminates over this occasion herself. And yeah, I think it's an opportunity almost to pay homage to her, which feels like the dangerous thing when there's a real toy on the line. Well, exactly. Is this going to say is there a danger that emotion here could actually overtake the necessity to do a professional job? I think there's a risk of it. It's certainly something I asked Taylor's trainer, Ross Enema, when I was speaking to him last week.

2:06And they've touched upon it as well at the top table at the press conference on Tuesday. It's something that Eddie Herne has been quick to remind people. I don't think you need to remind Katie Taylor, right? Like she's addicted to the competitive nature of what she does. She's addicted to being the best in the world. That's why she's done it for as long as she has done it. I think where this is slightly different, contextually, obviously is that she only came back because of Croak Park. This was a dream of hers for a long time. She was bordered and retired after her last victory over Amanda Serano, Amanda Sarrano, Amanda Sarrano, and the square garden last July. And it was the carrot being dangled in front of her of Croak Park that eventually lured her out of that ostensible retirement. But I think ultimately when you've been training for three months that she has been, and she looked extremely sharp at her open work, as well as Wednesday. Sharp her, I would say, then usual, even mad at 40 years of age. She won't be long clicking it to gear. I think the ringwalk and the weight of the emotion to that will be significant for her. That has probably had effect and effect on her. In the past, we think back to our first fight with Chantal Camarin, which was her first professional fight in Dublin. It definitely manifested itself in a little bit of a physical flatness early in that fight,

3:08which cost her. But even that is something of a learning experience, which we are looking extraordinary thing to say about a fighter of Taylor's experience. But yeah, I think there's a risk of it. And yet I feel as if she's better equipped than borderline any boxer on the planet to actually deal with that and still win. Okay, tell us about the opponent, Flora Peely. What sort of opposition is she going to give? Yeah, the first thing is like she isn't, well, she's not the most heralded of names. She's not a no mark. She hasn't been hand selected as a nobody, as a soft touch. She is worthy of this shaft by virtue of her ranking with the WBC and the IDF. I would say that she's not all the caliber of a Chantal Camarin or an Amanda Serrano for example. She had a decent amateur career. She was a French champion. But she never represented France at the World Championships, for example. Kelly Harrington beat her fairly handily, albeit that was nine years ago in the amateur ring. But like she's worked steadily through the professional ranks. She's around 12 victories. And the reason why she is so highly ranked, ultimately matters because the light well-dewaid

4:11division in which Taylor now campaigns and which she holds the majority of the belts has sort of emptied out a little bit. It's relatively shallow compared to some of the weight classes around it. The likes of Chantal Camarin have moved off, Michaela Mayor, who fought Camarin in a thriller a couple of weekends ago. She's left the division behind. So it's sort of only KD Taylor there as a star. And Tilly was probably the opponent that made the most sense. Technically, she's fairly astute. She gets her head off the line when she throws single punches quite well. I think she leaves herself a little bit more vulnerable when she throws combinations. And you're kind of thinking in a fight of this nature where look, the odds are stacked against it. You're going to have to commit to a little bit more. You're going to have to almost rip the belts off the champion in a way to feel pardoned. The cliche. So she will leave herself vulnerable to Taylor's handspeed, but she's physically larger. She's 29. She's a lot younger. She's fresher obviously, both in terms of my little Jan age. And yeah, you don't want to give her any kind of a head start and make it a more difficult night than it needs to be. Because KD Taylor is not really a knockout merchant in recent years. Is she? She tends to go the distance. There's a chance, isn't there that

5:14those who go to Krog Park or who watching on the Tilly will get the full 10 rounds of two minutes. Yeah, one of the fascinating things that I learned from speaking to Rossini and my her trainer last week was that there's almost been two phases. This is the way he framed it to her professional career. So as you mentioned, she isn't an knockout merchant. She hasn't had a stoppage in seven years, but it's actually seven years since she suffered an injury, which really altered the trajectory of her professional career. Not the trajectory, but more so the rhythm of it. So just before that first fight with Delphine Pressoon at Madison Square Garden in 2019, which people may recall was the first time she ran into trouble as a professional. She tore her right calf, which is the least ideal, least optimal injury. A right handed boxer can suffer because it's your back foot, essentially. It's the foot from which you're pushing off, from which you're delivering combinations, from which a lot of the power actually comes from. And at 3334 at the time, you know, the metabolism is already slowing down. It's like in a test, too. Very difficult to recover from that. Your calf is never the same, really, from that point onwards, Matt. And from that point onwards, she's been drawn into a lot of wars and the memorable fights that we'll all

6:15take with us, you know, into our old age if we were lucky enough to be there, I watched them, but equally a lot of that power just isn't quite there anymore, some of the power that she had earlier in her career. So yes, she's very much a 10 round fighter now. Well, how was she compensated? And how is this just the warrior inner that she just finds a way to make sure she isn't beaten? That we saw particularly in the three fights when Amanda Serrano. It's exactly that, Matt. And I would say especially the first two of those fights and certainly the camera rematch, like it's just extraordinary force of will that she has that that keeps her in that point 1% of athlete. It's not to my inboxes. It's probably what she's most revered for. I would say in America and Britain, in particular where those fans who were sort of late comers to her story didn't quite see the technical magician that we would have watched at Wentayla was an amateur, for example. It's been about really slugging it out and slugging it out and getting things over the line where things feel dicey. Interestingly about the third fight with Serrano, people will recall like Taylor just boxed her like outboxed her and the sense was, okay, well she finally just stayed on the outside

7:21and I was more careful and used her technical superiority. But equally, Amanda Serrano was 37. She'd had those wars with Katie Taylor. Her feet weren't the same as they used to be. She wasn't a spring chicken either. And I think it's a testament to Taylor's conditioning ultimately that she looked the better athlete than Serrano on the night. And at that at 40 years old, she's still able to produce those types of performances in spite of a relative lack of mobility compared to what we were used to seeing. Talked me a little bit about the difference between her amateur career and her professional career because I think most of us remember the excitement when she won the gold medal in the Olympics in London in 2012. And then the disappointment when a four years later in real, 10 years ago now as it is, she lost a quarter final on a split decision, meaning that not only did she not retain her gold, she didn't win a medal of any color. So was that in some respects? So perhaps a useful turning point that gave her the momentum to prove herself again in going into the professional arena. I think so, man. And I'd be the first to admit that when I watched that defeat

8:26to Mira Parkone in North Finland, who Taylor had beaten countless times previously, even looking at her kind of her muscles definition, like, you know, the muscles around her shoulders and things like people who recall it was the first time for, I mean, really ever that she hadn't worked with her father, Peter Taylor, from whom she was a stranger at that time. They've obviously reconciled since. But I think that made a massive difference. And it suggested to me that Taylor was actually on the athletic decline at around 29 and 30. And she'd been on the road a long time even as far back as then. But she has proven me wrong and everybody else wrong in how she's been able to build this professional career and not only win belts and sort of acclaim and make tens of millions of euro at this point, but reshape the sport, you know, like really change the conversation around female boxing again, the way she did as an amateur, like changing that the entire paradigm of female fighter pay and there's been a culture shift that she is spearheaded as a professional, which makes her a very, very important Irish athlete or a very important athlete full stop. And the difference

9:29in terms of her physical output, yes, it's probably market in that she's probably gone from being a a phenomenal artistic boxer to a little bit more of a boxer slash warrior, as you say. But the cultural impact that she's had on on each cold in boxing has been extraordinary and it's for that reason she'd ranked very highly at least in terms of Irish sports personalities or sports people to me. I mean, it's hard to knock her off that top spot in terms of what she's actually contributed to her sport on a global level. I suspect Gavin that many who are going to croak park tomorrow evening may never have been at a boxing fight previously, that they're going because it's an event involving Katie Taylor that they may have seen her on their television screens, but they actually have never been a Katie Taylor fight. What can they expect from the evening because it's not just her fight, there's not a lot of other fights going on as well. And what sort of atmosphere would you anticipate given that you're going to have a mix of the boxing veterans and those who might be newcomers to live performance? I think it will be quite familiar as well, Matt, like in terms of

10:38there are actually family tickets or were for sale for there's so a lot of kids like I imagine it'll be quite a jovial atmosphere and then during the actual fights, particularly Taylor's and her ring walk and those introductions from the MC at center ring, it'll just be earsplitting, deafening, hair raising. And I guess like if you were to compare it to something like an Anthony Joshua fighter at Tyson Fury, that Wembley Stadium for example, or a Canelo Alvaro's fight at Cowboy Stadium and that kind of thing, like a lot of the fans that attend those in their tens of thousands also aren't necessarily boxing fans, they are just going along for the event. I mean boxing remains in each sport and yet it's only the top sort of 1% again of boxing personalities that have that gravitational pull where they draw in the casual sports fan, which is happening here for sure. And like Taylor has been the most admired Irish sports person for the last, I don't know how many years and it's good to see people voting with their feet whether or not they're boxing fans, they sort of just want to bid her for well as an Irish sports person. I'm really looking forward to just that that sense of occasion and probably kids especially getting

11:42a chance to see her before she is gone mad. But there'll also be a show won't there in the sense that there's music and there'll be another razmataz and promotion, particularly under the lights won't it when as it gets dark later in the evening? Yeah for sure, yeah like as I mentioned those two music lacks as well and you've got Eiffel Scott and Rochino or singing a ron of VN before Katie's fight and yeah there'll be I'd heard a standard extremely excited about it all week and like okay he's a salesman right but there seems to have been like almost this sincerity to how enthused he is by the show that they're going to put on now he hasn't divulged all of the information yet or what we can expect for certainly a celebration of Irishness and Irish culture is to be expected and yeah I think for anybody going along people of all ages you know whether or not you've been to a boxing fight before whether or not you've seen Katie Taylor before it's going to be an occasion to take with you hopefully it's just you want the right result at the end of it so that when you do

12:43sit down to watch reeling in the years and 20 years time you don't have to win as you think back to that occasion and then let's hope it ends with Katie Taylor's hand being raised at the end of it and she does get to write off into the sunset in the right circumstances okay and what time would she be getting into the ringer? I think shortly after 10 p.m. that's so my understanding is that everybody has to be out of crowbar by sort of 11 o'clock now her fight is 10 by two minutes round so it's a 20 minute fight with an extra nine minutes for the pauses in between rounds so say you get wrapped by I don't know half 10 25 to 11 then you probably have a post-fight interview in the ring and hopefully celebrations and things like that so it's doable but yeah my understanding is somewhere around the region of like 10 past 10 but yeah if people are tuning in on TV and say if you only wanted to watch Taylor's fight I'd probably throw it on at I don't know 5 to 10 just to be safe. Gavin Casey from the 42.i.e. is ever thank you very much for being with us.