When Katie Taylor came to America

NEW YORK — In the early hours of May 1, 2022, the Irish population of New York City were dotted all over Midtown Manhattan, celebrating the island’s most revered fighting product hours after her victory in the biggest women’s boxing match of all time.

You see, Katie Taylor is much more than an athlete to the Irish. And when she was given the grandest stage to display her pugilistic prowess, they showed up in droves. With more than 40 million people in the United States claiming Irish heritage, they travelled from far and wide, with hundreds also making the trip across the Atlantic for Taylor's long-awaited boxing blockbuster against Amanda Serrano.

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Deep in the bowels of a legendary venue, where I was brought with colleagues to record a post-fight show, director of press relations for Madison Square Garden, Larry Torres, told us the undisputed lightweight championship bout was one of the best fights he’d seen in the decades he’d worked there.

Just as we began, in walked the queen of boxing, Taylor, with the battle scars still fresh on her face from the first of what would soon become multiple legendary duels with Serrano.

Serrano’s passionate support from the Puerto Rican community was every bit as impressive and numerous as the Irish that night. Together, they provided a perfect backdrop for the first women’s fight to ever headline the fabled New York institution that is Madison Square Garden, with the watching world feeling the emotional outpouring from the historic gathering through their screens.

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“Thanks so much for coming,” Taylor told the host of our show, Uncrowned's own Ariel Helwani, as if he’d been invited to a birthday party, while fellow colleague Chuck Mindenhall and I scraped our jaws off the floor.

That unforgettable night in New York wasn't just a sporting milestone, it was a cultural flashpoint. The energy pulsing through Midtown spoke to something deeper: The enduring, intricate bond between Ireland and Taylor — and Ireland and the United States.

The Irish Hunger Memorial stands proudly beside the Port Authority ferry terminal in Manhattan's Battery City Park. The memorial is dedicated to raising awareness of the Great Irish Hunger — An Gorta Mór in Irish — a catastrophic period between 1845 and 1852 during which more than 1 million people starved to death, not for lack of food, but due to British colonial policies that withheld it.

In the decade that followed, approximately 1 million Irish emigrants passed through the port of New York, and by 1855, Irish-born residents made up nearly one-third of the city’s population. To this day, it’s estimated that thousands of Irish immigrate to the States every year.

Providing a safe haven from the blight was far from the only contribution the U.S. made to the Irish. The U.S. gave the island inspiration with its own fight for independence from British rule and also supplied ample public pressure, financial support and diplomatic influence before the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922.

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In 1998, U.S. President Bill Clinton played a pivotal role in negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to most of the violence in “The Troubles” — the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland between Irish and British officials that took place over the course of 30 years. It is considered the most significant milestone in the Northern Irish peace process.

The second meeting between Taylor and Serrano lacked the historical weight — and the cultural backdrop — of their first, largely because it took place in Arlington, Texas, on the undercard of the global circus that was Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson. However, when the integrity of one of the country’s brightest sporting beacons was called into question, her faithful fan base bristled accordingly.

Something stirred deep within the Emerald Isle while watching the Netflix broadcast this past November when commentator Rosie Perez claimed that Taylor’s second win over Serrano would forever be “an asterisk” on her legacy.

Serrano’s head coach, Jordan Maldonado, had a similar scathing appraisal of the contest, accusing Taylor of “fighting dirty.” While iconic names like Roy Jones Jr. and Teddy Atlas offered a counterbalance to the lofty criticisms — explaining that head-butts are a naturally occurring consequence of the lead foot battle when an orthodox fighters meets a southpaw — Serrano was adamant that the fouls were intentional.

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“She kept head-butting me, but we knew that from the very beginning, from the first fight — that’s what they do,” Serrano told Helwani in the ring after the contest. “She did it in our first fight, she did it against Chantelle Cameron.”

There was something unsettling about Taylor — the primary reason why women’s boxing became an Olympic sport — being portrayed in such a way. Lauded for her integrity and sporting brilliance, a career spanning decades void of controversy or scandal suddenly seemed to be called into question.

With 47 million people viewing the contest globally, it was the most-watched women’s boxing match of all time. While many argued that the headline bout pitting 58-year-old Tyson against a man 30 years his junior, Paul, was a blemish on boxing, Taylor and Serrano’s offering was the epitome of the sport could offer.

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There is no denying that both Taylor vs. Serrano fights were as excruciatingly close as they were spellbinding. No one would be blamed for scoring either bout in Serrano’s favor. Yet an underlying theme has crept into the buildup for Friday's trilogy bout in Madison Square Garden, which once again takes center stage for a worldwide audience on Netflix: The idea that Taylor’s second win was something of a heist.

Although the respect between the two warriors is clear, their third meeting has arrived with added tension. When Serrano suggested that the world knew she won the second fight at an April press conference, the Bray boxer sparked off in a way that we have rarely seen.

“Even with the ridiculous point deduction during that fight, the three judges still saw it my way,” Taylor fired back at her rival. “I was the deserved winner and we’re having a silly conversation again because you’re trying to create a narrative that you were robbed in that fight. That’s not OK, Amanda.”

Two days after Taylor and Serrano first captured the broader world's attention with their Fight of the Year in 2022, a musician played an acoustic version of “A Pair of Brown Eyes” by The Pogues in the corner of P.J. Horgan’s in Sunnyside, Queens.

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Surrounded by Irish immigrants, maybe it was the music or the Guinness that made me inquire, but I felt the need to ask the red-headed woman sitting next to me how it feels to hear songs from back home after being away for so long.

“It must hit a lot harder,” I said.

She immediately burst into tears. A smile cracked across her husband’s face sitting next to her.

“This happens all the time,” he told me in a thick New York bark. “Anything to do with Ireland can set her off.”

Taylor provides the same pull to home as the music and culture of the motherland. Signs of her return are dotted all over New York City this week. The Empire State Building that will take on the colors of the Irish and Puerto Rican flags on Friday. Times Square lit up with images of the duo’s faceoff. On Tuesday, the Oculus at World Trade Center was transformed into a futuristic boxing arena for the open workouts, with thousands drinking in the festivities.

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Taylor hates nothing more than to be asked about retirement, but at 39 years old, it’s an obvious line of questioning. The support from home remains unanimous, but fight by fight the concern builds.

With nothing left to prove, after accomplishing everything in the sport and beating Serrano twice, is there a need for a trilogy fight? Punishment is par for the course in the squared circle, but at what point will Taylor have had enough?

In a sport with few happy endings, you just hope that Taylor gets the finale she deserves when the time comes, as the greatest fighting product to ever hoist the tricolor in triumph.