Katie Taylor retains title after controversial win  

Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano rematched as the co-main event in the Tyson vs Paul fight card on Saturday 15^th November. However, a contentious unanimous decision victory for Taylor, resulted in the Irish-born fighter being drowned out by boos from the audience as she gave her post-fight speech.

The fight itself was an all-out war. With both fighters showing tremendous amounts of heart and desire to keep pushing an incredible intensity throughout the entire fight (unlike the other co-main event). The rules of being a 10-round bout with 2-minute rounds certainly helped to ignite this firefight as both boxers were left with significantly less time to hurt their opponents than they are usually afforded.

Amanda Serrano’s activity within the ring was evident to many, as she adopted a volume heavy style that saw her land a vast number of punches in each round. The end of round one was a significant indicator of this, as Serrano knocked Taylor back against the ropes with a sharp left straight before following up with a one-two combination as the bell rung. Round 4 also saw a similar instance as Serrano seemed to land on Taylor at will as she continued to outpunch the current champion.

Taylor wasn’t helpless in the ring by any means though, as she landed her fair share of heavy shots against her opponent. But the criticism of Taylor lay mainly with the issues of the multiple cases of headbutting that she implemented. The referee had warned the fighter several times about the infringements, before eventually deducting a point from Taylor in the 8^th round. Taylor’s somewhat ‘dirty tactics’ also caused a nasty cut to the side of Serrano’s right eye, which had to be constantly monitored by the referee and medical officials.

The deduction of a point from Taylor left many to believe that there could only be one winner as the fight came to an end. Statistics on the viewers screen showed that Serrano had landed 324 punches, whilst Taylor had only inflicted 217. Although the judges seemed to have different perspectives to everyone else who had watched the bout, as Taylor was given a unanimous decision over Serrano.

The crowd were furious with the result, which was shown with their loving cheers for Serrano during her post fight interview, and hateful jeering of Taylor during hers.

Whilst the fight was close in terms of overall damage received by both fighters, the loss of a point for Taylor left many scratching their heads as to how there wasn’t even a split decision for the winner, never mind Serrano not being victorious.