Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano faced a huge media turnout in New York today at the final press conference ahead of their historic showdown at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night.
Taylor will put her Undisputed World Lightweight titles on the line against Serrano, a 7 weight division World Champion as two women headline an event for the first time in MSG’s 140 year history.
Speaking to the assembled media today Taylor said, The amount of media we have had to do all week was huge. I’m sick of talking about myself but it’s been an amazing week so far. This is definitely very different than how I started boxing when I was eight or nine years old. Like Eddie said, I had to pretend I was a boy to get fights.”
“Women’s boxing wasn’t even a sanctioned sport in Ireland. Now here we are many years later headlining MSG, the most iconic venue in boxing. Making history as the biggest women’s boxing match in history is just incredible. This is all of the sacrifice that I have been working for, for sure.”
Over 19,000 fans are expected to be in attendance on Saturday night with promoter Eddie Hearn confirming that over 4,000 of those tickets were bought by fans in Ireland travelling over to New York for the bout.
“The fact that this is going to be a sell out on Saturday night, there is a great appetitive for female fights and this is very special,” said Taylor. “It’s the best versus the best and it’s just a great boxing match. This isn’t just the best female fight you can see right now – it’s the best fight you can watch right now, male or female.”
“I don’t train to lose any fights. I train to win. I’m going to step in there confident that I will come out victorious. The best part about this fight is being able to inspire the next generation. This fight on Saturday night is going to inspire a lot of young girls and that to me is the best part about this.”
Serrano is equally confident ahead of the eagerly awaited fight. “It’s been a long time and it’s finally happening,” said the Brooklyn based Puerto Rican. “Now I’ll shine thanks to all of you guys at Madison Square Garden. I couldn’t ask for a better place to make history once again. Sitting here I made history. I won my golden gloves here at the Hulu Theater. And I made history on DAZN with you becoming a seven-division world champion and I plan to do the same thing at the big garden. It’s my first time there. I shine under pressure.”
“One of my goals is to become undisputed champion and she has that and I’m going up, once again, two divisions to fight one of the best fighters in the world.”
“It’s been an amazing long journey getting here to fight Katie Taylor. Timing is no better than right now. I am so looking forward to Saturday.”
“We are probably the two nicest fighters. There is no bad talk between me and Katie Taylor because the fights are won inside the ring, not outside. We don’t need to talk bad about each other.”
“Our accomplishments got us where we at right now and we are making history together. No matter what happens on Saturday night, this is for the fans, women in general, and women in boxing and women’s boxing is only going to grow more.”
